Viva  Mexico! 

Charles  Macomb  Flandrau 


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D.   APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


na 


VIVA    MEXICO! 


By 


CHARLES    MACOMB  JILANDRAIJ^ 

Author  of  "  Harvard  Episodes,"  "The 
Diary  of  a  Freshman,"  etc. 


NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 

1912 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Published  September,  1908 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

DON    GUILLERMO 

OF    THE     FINCA     DE 
SANTA   MARGARITA 


For  permission  to  reprint  the  chapters 
of  this  book  that  originally  appeared  in 
The  Bellman^  I  heg  to  thank  the  editor. 

C.  M.  F. 


VIVA    MEXICO! 


NEITHER  tourists  nor  persons  of  fashion 
seem  to  have  discovered  that  the  trip  by  wa- 
ter from  New  York  to  Vera  Cruz  is  both 
interesting  and  agreeable.  But  perhaps  to  tourists 
and  persons  of  fashion  it  wouldn't  be.  For,  al- 
though the  former  enjoy  having  traveled,  they 
rarely  enjoy  traveling,  and  the  travels  of  the  latter 
would  be  pointless,  as  a  rule,  if  they  failed  to  in- 
volve the  constant  hope  of  social  activity  and  its 
occasional  fulfillment.  By  tourists  I  mean  —  and 
without  disparagement  of  at  least  their  preference — 
persons  who  prefer  to  visit  a  country  in  bands  of 
from  fifteen  to  f^^'e  hundred  rather  than  in  a  man- 
ner less  expeditionary ;  and  persons  of  fashion  I  am 
able  even  more  accurately  to  define  to  my  own  sat- 
isfaction by  saying  they  are  the  kind  of  persons  to 
whom  the  wives  of  American  ambassadors  in  Eu- 
rope are  polite.  Probably  to  neither  of  these  globe- 
trotting  but   alien  classes  would    the  voyage   from 

I 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

New  York  to  Vera  Cruz  appeal.  For  the  tourist 
it  is  too  slow  and  long.  There  are  whole  days 
when  there  is  nothing  for  the  man  in  charge  of  him 
to  expound  through  his  megaphone;  whole  days 
when  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  contemplate  a 
cloudless  sky  and  a  semitropical  sea.  Thoroughly 
to  delight  in  the  protracted  contemplation  of  such 
spacious  blueness  overhead  and  of  so  much  placid 
green  water  underneath,  one  must  be  either  very 
lazy  or  very  contemplative.  Tourists,  of  course,  are 
neither,  and  while  persons  of  fashion  are  some- 
times both,  they  are  given  to  contemplating  the 
beauties  of  nature  from  points  of  vantage  favorable 
also  to  the  contemplation  of  one  another. 

Emphatically  the  deck  of  a  Ward  line  steamer  is 
not  one  of  these.  A  preliminary  investigation  just 
before  the  ship  sails  rarely  results  in  the  discovery 
of  what  a  certain  type  of  American  classifies  as 
"  nice  people."  When  nice  people  take  sea  voyages 
they  usually  go  to  Europe;  and  so  there  is  an  addi- 
tional anticipatory  thrill  on  embarking  for  Mexico 
in  the  certainty  that  there  won't  be  any  merely  nice 
people  on  board.  The  ship  will  be  crowded — so 
crowded,  in  fact,  that  at  Havana  and  Progreso 
(which  is  the  port  of  Merida  in  the  Mexican  State 
of  Yucatan)  the  company's  agents  will  distractedly 

2 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

swoop  down  on  you  and  try  to  convince  you  that 
it  is  to  your  everlasting  advantage  to  abandon  a 
lower  berth  in  the  stateroom  long  experience  has 
enabled  you  to  select,  for  an  upper  berth  in  a  room 
you  happen  to  know  is  small,  hot,  and  near  the  steer- 
age. If  you  are  amiable  you  laugh  at  them,  but 
if,  as  is  customary,  you  and  the  company  have  had 
a  fierce  disgusto  before  sailing  and  you  are  there- 
fore not  amiable,  you  express  yourself  without  re- 
straint and  then  run  to  the  rail  to  watch  the  agents 
depart  in  their  launch,  with  gestures  that  more  lit- 
erally resemble  the  traditional  tearing  of  hair, 
wringing  of  hands,  and  rending  of  garments  than 
any  you  have  yet  observed. 

The  ships  are  crowded,  but  not  with  the  kind 
of  people  who  set  sail  in  search  of  pleasure,  or  the 
Beyreuth  festival,  or  health,  or  the  London  season, 
or  clothes,  or  the  Kiel  regatta,  or  merely  because 
they  are  temporarily  hard  up  and  have  to  economize 
for  a  time  by  dismissing  the  servants,  closing  all  three 
houses,  and  living  very  simply  in  nine  ballrooms  at 
Claridge's  or  the  Ritz.  With  people  bound  for 
Latin  America,  Fate  somehow  seems  more  actively 
occupied,  on  more  intimate,  more  intrusive  terms 
than  it  is  with  people  on  the  way  to  somewhere 
else.     Most  of  them  are  going,  one  gradually  dis- 

3 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

covers,  not  just  to  see  what  it  is  like,  or  because  they 
have  seen  and  have  chosen  to  return,  but  because 
circumstances  in  their  wonderful,  lucid  way  have 
combined  to  send  them  there. 

My  roommates — I  can't  afford  a  whole  state- 
room— have  usually  detested  their  destinations  from 
experience  or  dreaded  them  from  hearsay.  One,  a 
silent,  earnest-looking  young  man  who  was  fond  of 
playing  solitaire  and  reading  the  poems  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  always  spent  his  winters  in  the  hot 
countries,  not  because  he  liked  them,  but  because 
his  profession  of  "  looping  the  loop  "  on  a  bicycle 
could  be  continuously  pursued  only  in  climates 
salubrious  to  the  circus.  Another,  a  grizzled  old 
Wisconsin  timber  cruiser,  was  being  sent,  much 
against  his  will,  to  make  a  report  on  some  Cuban 
forest  lands. 

"  It  is  a  queer,  strange  thing,"  he  confided  in  me 
when  we  parted  in  Havana  harbor,  "  that  a  man 
of  my  age  and  morals  won't  be  able  even  to  get 
drunk  without  the  help  o'  that  " — and  he  nodded 
toward  the  ladylike  little  interpreter  who  had  come 
out  to  meet  him  and  take  charge  of  him  during  his 
stay. 

Still  another  struck  me  at  first  as  a  provincial 
and  tedious  New  Englander  until  I  found  out  his 

4 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

mission.  His  inside  coat  pocket  was  stuffed  with 
photographs  of  his  numerous  children,  and  he  had 
a  horror  of  snakes  and  tarantulas  that  he  often 
expressed  much  as  one  of  Miss  Wilkins's  heroines 
might  express  her  horror  of  mice.  Like  all  persons 
who  share  the  same  dread  and  are  about  to  make 
a  first  visit  to  the  tropics,  he  conferred  on  reptiles 
and  poisonous  insects  a  kind  of  civic  importance  that 
they  themselves  under  no  circumstances  assume.  He 
had  a  haunting  idea  that  the  entire  toxical  popu- 
lation of  Guatemala  would  be  lined  up  at  the 
railway  station  to  receive  him.  But  when  it  came 
out  that  he  was  being  sent  twenty-six  hundred  miles 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  splicing  a  rope — a  matter, 
he  said,  of  a  few  hours  at  the  most — I  was  com- 
pelled to  see  him  in  a  light  not  only  different  but 
almost  romantic.  Somewhere  in  darkest  Guatemala 
there  was  a  rope  four  and  a  half  miles  long.  It 
broke,  and  my  roommate,  who  had  never  been 
farther  south  than  Summer  Street  nor  farther 
west  than  West  Newton — localities  between  which 
he  had  vibrated  daily  for  many  years — was,  it 
seemed,  the  one  human  being  among  all  the  hu- 
man beings  from  Guatemala  to  Boston  who  was 
capable  of  splicing  it.  As  the  rope  had  cost  three 
thousand    dollars    it    was    distinctly    less    expensive 

5 


VIVA   AIEXICO! 

to  import  a  West   Newtonian  than  to  import  an- 
other rope. 

Then,  too,  I  once  between  Havana  and  Vera 
Cruz  had  as  a  roommate  a  "  confidence  man  " — a 
broadening  and  therefore  a  valuable  experience. 
One  is  not  often  given  the  privilege  of  living  for 
five  days  with  a  confidence  man  on  terms  of  confi- 
dence. He  was  a  tall,  lank,  sandy-haired  creature 
of  about  forty,  with  a  Roman  nose,  a  splendid 
mustache,  unemotional,  gray-green  eyes,  a  diamond 
ring,  and  suspenders,  as  well  as  a  belt;  the  sort  of 
looking  person  whom  twenty-five  years  ago  British 
playwrights  would  have  seized  upon  as  "  a  typical 
American."  In  a  bloodless  fashion  his  whole  ex- 
istence was  "  a  carnival  of  crime  " — a  succession  of 
scurvy  tricks,  heartless  swindles,  lies,  frauds,  and, 
now  and  then,  candid,  undisguised  thefts.  Some- 
times, as  when  he  sold  jewelry  and  bric-a-brac  at 
auction,  his  dealings  were  with  the  semi-intelligent 
well-to-do,  but  more  often  he  exerted  himself  among 
the  credulous  poor,  as  when  he  unloaded  brass 
watch  cases  filled  with  tacks  on  negroes  at  Texas 
fairs.  His  marked  playing  cards  and  loaded  dice, 
which  he  showed  and  explained  to  me  with  much 
amiable  vanity,  were  very  ingenious,  and  I  found 
our   long,    cheerful    discussions   on    the    technic    of 

6 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

his  art  most  helpful.  His  contributions  to  them,  in 
fact,  threw  upon  certain  phases  of  sociology  a 
brilliant  and  authoritative  light  that  I  defy  anyone 
to  get  out  of  a  book  or  put  into  it.  From  instinct, 
from  habit,  from  love  of  the  work,  he  was  an  al- 
most thoroughly  consistent  scoundrel,  and  it  was  a 
shock  to  discover  by  the  end  of  the  voyage  that  the 
thing  about  him  I  most  objected  to  was  his  wear- 
ing suspenders  as  well  as  a  belt. 

There  is  always  a  brave  and  hopeful  little  band 
of  actors  on  board  —  usually  an  American  stock 
company  on  the  way  to  its  financial  and  artistic 
doom  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  And  it  is  invariably 
named  after  the  beautiful  3'oung  lady  who  has  hyp- 
notized some  middle-aged  Mexican  patron  saint  of 
the  drama  into  guaranteeing  everybody  six  weeks' 
salary  and  a  return  ticket.  If  it  isn't  the  Beryl 
Smith  Company  it  is  sure  to  be  the  Company  of 
Hazel  Jones  or  Gladys  Robinson,  and  Beryl  (or 
Hazel  or  Gladys)  Is  so  beautiful  that  she  can  stand 
unhatted  and  unveiled  in  the  midday  sunlight  of 
the  Gulf — beauty  knows  no  more  merciless  test — 
without  making  you  wish  she  wouldn't.  Further- 
more, 3'Ou  continue  to  think  her  hair  the  loveliest 
color  you  have  ever  seen,  even  after — with  an  ex- 
tremely   elegant    gesture — she    tosses    her   chewing 

7 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

gum   overboard    and    languidly   tells   you   how  she 
does  it. 

But   her   tragedy,   like   that   of   her   more   hard- 
working associates,  is  a  great  inability  to  hold  any- 
one's attention   except   when   she   is   off  the   stage. 
If  actors  could  only  arrange  in  some  way  to  charge 
admission   to  their  semi-private  existence,  acting  as 
a  profession  would  be  less  of  a  gamble.     For  it  is 
an  unexplained   fact   that,  however  obscure,  incon- 
spicuous, and  well-behaved  they  may  be,  actors  and 
actresses    excite,   when    they   are    not   acting,    more 
curiosity,  speculation,  and  comment  than  any  other 
class.     Start  the  rumor  on  shipboard  that  a  certain 
quiet,  unattached  young  woman,  who  wears  a  shabby 
mackintosh,   common-sense  shoes  and   a  last  year's 
hat,  is  a  third-rate   actress,   and  the  center  of  the 
deck  at  once  becomes  hers.     A  few  days  later,  how- 
ever, when  she  turns  out  to  be  a  first-rate  physician 
or  the  professor  of  Pre-Christian  Hebrew  literature 
at  Bryn   Mawr,   her  value  as  a  conversational  re- 
source drops  instantly  to  nothing. 

But  if  on  the  voyage  to  Mexico  one's  compatriots 
strike,  to  fall  back  on  the  cant  phrase,  a  diverting 
"  note,"  the  Cubans,  the  Spaniards,  the  Yucatecans, 
and  the  Mexicans  in  general  strike  whole  chords. 
To  set  sail  for  anywhere,  even  Duluth,  has  always 

8 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

seemed  to  me  considerably  more  than  merely  a  prac- 
tical step  toward  transporting  myself  from  one  place 
to  another.  On  going  aboard  a  ship  I  can't — and 
would  not  if  I  could — rid  myself  of  the  sensation 
that  there  is  something  improbable  and  adventurous 
about  me;  that  everybody,  from  the  captain  to  the 
sixty-year-old  cockney  stewardess,  is  about  to  engage 
in  "  deeds  of  love  and  high  emprise."  The  sudden 
translation  from  Forty-second  Street  to  the  deck  of 
any  steamer  bound  for  foreign  parts  has  a  thrill  in 
it,  but  if  the  destination  be  the  tropics,  there  is  more 
than  one.  They  are  incited  by  the  presence  of  so 
many  slim,  sallow,  gesticulating  men,  and  stout, 
powdered,  gayly  (and  badly)  dressed  women,  by  the 
surprisingly  variegated  inflections  and  minor  ca- 
dences of  the  Spanish  language,  by  the  first  pene- 
trating whiff  of  exotic  tobacco  smoke  from  the 
cigarette  of  a  cofiFee-colored  old  lady  with  a  mus- 
tache, from  the  very  shape  and  quality  of  the  lug- 
gage as  it  is  hoisted  over  the  side  or  carried  up  by 
the  army  of  negro  porters;  the  most  un-Anglo- 
Saxon  luggage  conceivable.  They  travel,  the  Latin- 
Americans,  with  incredible  amounts  of  it,  and  the 
sight  of  it  always  makes  me  wonder  whether  they 
have  ever  traveled  before  or  ever  expect  to  travel 
again.  For  it  consists  chiefly  of  gigantic,  smashed- 
3  9 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

in  paper  band-boxes,  satchels  precariously  fashioned 
out  of  something  that  tries  hard  to  look  like  leather 
and  doesn't  in  the  least  succeed,  pale  blue  or  pink 
trunks  that  for  some  occult  reason  are  narrower 
at  the  bottom  than  at  the  top  and  might  be  either 
small,  frivolous  coffins  or  large,  forbidding  cradles, 
corpulent  bales  of  heaven  knows  what  covered  with 
matting,  baskets  covered  with  newspapers,  articles 
of  wearing  apparel  covered  with  confusion,  and 
fifty  other  things  covered  with  nothing  at  all.  Once 
at  the  Wall  Street  wharf  I  saw  a  young  Mexican 
get  out  of  a  Holland  House  omnibus  bearing  in 
his  hand  a  parrot  cage  stuffed  full  of  shoes.  It 
seemed  to  me  at  the  time  a  delirious  incident,  and 
I  remembered  it.  But  I  doubt  that,  after  having 
lived  in  Mexico,  I  should  now  notice  or  remember 
it  at  all.  He  was  a  very  charming  young  person 
whose  mother  had  been  a  lady  in  waiting  to  the 
Empress  Carlotta,  and  he  was  on  his  way  back  from 
Belgium,  where  he  goes  once  a  year  to  sink  on  his 
knee  and  kiss  the  aged  Carlotta's  hand. 

Oh,  yes,  there  is  always  a  thrill  in  it — this  setting 
sail  for  the  hot  countries.  It  begins  on  the  dock, 
slightly  increases  as  one  steams  past  the  low,  monot- 
onous coast  of  Florida,  becomes  disturbing  in  the 
exquisite  little  harbor  of  Havana,  and  at  Progreso, 

lO 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

where  for  thirty-six  hours  one  stares  at  the  shallow, 
green  gulf  water,  the  indolent  sharks  and  the  stretch 
of  sand  and  palm  trees  wavering  in  heat,  that  is 
Yucatan,  it  enslaves  one  like  a  drug  of  which  one 
disapproves,  but  to  which  one  nevertheless  suc- 
cumbs. One  afternoon  at  sunset,  before  we  had 
even  sighted  land,  a  little  French  boy  accurately 
summed  up  for  us  the  vague  and  various  sensations 
that,  during  the  last  few  hours  of  the  hot  afternoon, 
had  stolen  over  us  all.  He  had  been  born  in 
Yucatan  and  was  returning  there  with  his  father 
after  a  first  visit  to  France.  Suddenly  in  his  race 
around  the  deck  with  some  other  children  he 
stopped  short,  glanced  at  the  group  of  half-dozing, 
half-fanning  women  in  steamer  chairs,  at  the  listless 
men  against  the  rail,  at  the  calm,  lemon-colored  sky 
and  the  floating  islands  of  seaweed  on  the  green 
water.  Then,  throwing  back  his  head,  he  closed  his 
eyes,  drew  a  long  appreciative  breath  and,  with  his 
eyes  still  closed,  exclaimed  luxuriously:  "  Ah-h-h, 
on  sent  les  pays  chauds!  " 


II 

yl  T  first  you  are  both  amazed  and  annoyed  by 
j\  what  seems  like  not  only  lack  of  curiosity  but 
positive  ignorance  on  the  part  of  Americans 
who  live  in  Mexico.  As  a  new  arrival,  I  had  an 
admirable  thirst  for  information  which  I  endeav- 
ored to  slake  at  what  I  supposed  were  fountains 
of  knowledge  as  well  as  of  afternoon  tea.  The  tea 
was  delicious  and  plentiful ;  but  the  knowledge  sim- 
ply did  not  exist. 

"  What  is  the  population  of  Barranca?  "  you  ask 
of  an  intelligent  compatriot  who  has  lived  in  Bar- 
ranca for  ten  years. 

"  Why,  I  don't  know  exactly,"  he  replies,  as  if 
the  question  were  an  interesting  one  that  had  never 
before  occurred  to  him. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  exactly — but  is  it  eight  thou- 
sand, or  fourteen,  or  twenty-five?  It's  rather  diffi- 
cult for  a  stranger  to  form  an  idea ;  the  towns 
are  built  so  differently  from  ours.  Although  they 
may  not  be  really  large,  they  are  so  compact  that 
they  look  more  populous  and  '  citified  '  than  places 

12 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

of  the  same  size  in  the  United  States,"  you  ex- 
plain. 

"  Yes,  that's  very  true,  and  it  is  difficult,"  he 
agrees. 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  could  find  out  anywhere? 
Do  they  ever  take  the  census?"  you  pursue. 

"The  census?  Why,  I  don't  know  about  that. 
But  there's  Smith  on  the  bench  over  there  having 
his  shoes  shined.  He's  been  in  the  country  for  fif- 
teen years — he'll  be  able  to  tell  you.  Smith,  I 
want  to  introduce  a  friend  of  mine  who  is  very 
anxious  to  know  the  population  of  Barranca  and 
whether  they  ever  take  the  census." 

"  The  census?  "  muses  Smith,  ignoring  the  popu- 
lation entirely.  "  I  don't  know  if  they  take  the 
census,  but  they  take  your  taxes  with  great  regu- 
larity," he  declares  with  a  laugh.  Then  follows  a 
pleasant  ten  minutes  with  Smith,  during  which  the 
reason  of  your  introduction  to  him  does  not  recur, 
and  after  precisely  the  same  thing  has  happened 
several  other  times  with  several  other  persons,  you 
would  almost  rather  start  a  revolution  than  an 
inquiry  into  the  population  of  Barranca. 

The  specific  instance  is  perhaps  a  trivial  one,  but 
it  is  typical,  and,  as  I  said,  jou  are  for  a  time 
amazed    and    irritated,    on   asking   intelligent  ques- 

13 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

tions  about  the  federal  and  state  governments,  the 
judiciary,  the  army,  education,  morality,  and  even 
so  obvious  a  matter  as  the  climate,  to  receive  from 
American  acquaintances  replies  that  are  never  ac- 
curate and  rarely  as  much  as  inaccurately  definite. 
Some  of  them  frankly  admit  that,  as  they  never 
have  had  personal  relations  with  the  establishments 
you  seek  to  learn  about  (barring  the  climate),  they 
have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  inform  themselves. 
Others  appear  to  experience  a  belated  regret  at  their 
long  indifference,  promise  to  look  the  matter  up 
and  let  you  know.  But  they  never  do,  and  it  is 
rather  discouraging.  You  yearn  to  acquire  a  re- 
spectably comprehensive  idea  of  the  conditions  in 
which  you  are  living,  yet  the  only  people  with  whom 
you  can  carry  on  any  but  a  most  staccato  and  in- 
dispensable conversation  are  unable  to  throw  light. 
So,  being  the  only  one  really  intelligent  foreigner  in 
the  republic,  you  resort  to  the  medium  of  art,  and 
begin  to  read  books. 

Everyone  you  know  has  at  some  time  or  other 
read  and  enjoyed  Prescott's  "  Conquest,"  but  it  does 
not  emerge  that  on  the  subject  of  Mexico  they  have 
ever  read  anything  else,  and  for  a  while  you  quietly 
revel  in  your  mental  alertness  and  superior  intel- 
ligence.    You   are   learning   all   about  the  country 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

• — its  institutions  and  laws,  its  products  and  habits 
— while  your  listless  friends  still  sit  in  darkness. 
Then  one  fine  morning  something  happens — some- 
thing of  no  especial  importance,  but  something  that 
nevertheless  serves  to  insert  the  thin  edge  of  sus- 
picion's wedge  between  you  and  your  learning. 

You  have,  for  instance,  read  that  "  in  virtue  of 
the  constitution  adopted  February  5,  1857,  arrest 
is  prohibited,  save  in  the  case  of  crimes  meriting 
corporal  punishment,"  and  it  has  seemed  to  you 
a  wise  and  just  provision.  You  have  also,  let  us 
say,  employed  two  competent  stone  masons  to  build 
a  coffee  tank,  a  fireplace,  a  pigpen,  or  some  such 
useful  accessory  of  life  in  the  tropics,  and  you  be- 
come much  disturbed  when,  after  they  have  worked 
steadily  and  well  for  three  or  four  days,  they  fail 
to  appear.  That  afternoon  as  you  stroll  through 
the  plaza  lamenting  their  perfidy,  you  are  aston- 
ished at  receiving  two  friendly,  sheepish  greetings 
from  two  sheepish,  friendly  stone  masons  who  are 
engaged  in  laying  municipal  cobblestones,  together 
with  thirty  or  forty  other  prisoners,  under  the  eyes 
of  several  heavily  armed  policemen.  Unmistakably 
they  are  your  masons,  and  with  much  bewilderment 
you  demand  of  Smith — who,  no  doubt,  is  strolling 
with   you — just  what  it  means. 

15 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"  It  merely  means,"  Smith  explains,  "  that  the 
town  is  repairing  part  of  the  plaza  pavement  and 
needs  competent  masons.     So  they  arrested  yours." 

"But  on  what  grounds?" 

"  Oh,  drunkenness  probably." 

"Do  you  suppose  they  were  drunk?  They 
seemed  like  very  steady  men." 

"  Why,  they  may  have  been  a  trifle  elated,"  Smith 
laughs.  "  The  assumption  that  they  were  isn't  a 
particularly  startling  one  in  this  part  of  the  world. 
But  that  wasn't  why  they  were  arrested.  They 
were  arrested  because  they  were  good  masons  and 
the  city  happens  to  need  them.  If  they  hadn't  been 
drunk,  some  one  would  have  been  sent  out  to  make 
them  so — never,  unfortunately,  a  very  arduous  un- 
dertaking." 

"Oh,  indeed;  how  simple  and  efficacious!"  you 
murmur,  and  go  home  to  read  some  more. 

Still  other  wise  and  just  provisions  of  the  same 
excellent  document  are  that  no  person  may  be 
obliged  to  work  for  another  person  without  freely 
consenting  so  to  work,  nor  without  receiving  just 
remuneration,  and  that  imprisonment  for  debts  of 
a  purely  civil  nature  is  prohibited.  But  as  your 
Spanish  gradually  improves  and  you  are  able  to 
have  more  sustained    talks   with   the    natives,    you 

i6 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

learn  that  the  entire  lives  of  a  great  number  of 
peones  working  on  haciendas  contain  two  alterna- 
tives, one  of  which  is  practical  slavery  and  the  other 
imprisonment  for  debt  to  his  employer. 

A  young  man  goes  to  work  on,  say,  a  sugar  plan- 
tation for  the  magnificent  wages  of  thirty-six  Mexi- 
can cents  a  day.  In  the  course  of  time — usually 
a  very  short  time — he  acquires  a  family.  If  he 
acquires  it  after  certain  preliminary  formalities, 
such  as  a  marriage  ceremony  and  its  attendant  fes- 
tivities, his  employer  has  loaned  him  the  forty  or 
fifty  pesos — unpayable  sum — necessary  to  defray  the 
costs  of  the  priest  and  the  piper,  and  the  young 
man's  eternal  indebtedness  begins  from  the  begin- 
ning. If,  however,  there  are  no  formalities,  the 
financial  burden  is  not  assumed  until  the  birth  of 
the  first  child. 

Mexicans  of  every  station  adore  their  children, 
and  even  when,  as  frequently  happens  among  the 
lower  classes,  the  parents  are  neither  civilly  nor 
religiously  married  (in  Mexico  only  the  civil  cere- 
mony is  recognized  by  the  law)  nothing  is  too  good 
or  too  expensive  for  the  offspring.  They  are  bap- 
tized and,  if  the  informal  union  of  the  parents  lasts 
long  enough,  they  are  confirmed.  But  in  Mexico, 
as  elsewhere,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  costs  money, 

17 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  this  money  the  young  man's  employer  cheerfully 
advances.  Then  in  the  natural  march  of  events 
some  one  dies.  Death,  of  course,  all  the  world  over, 
has  become  one  of  our  grossest  extravagances. 
Again  the  employer  delightedly  pays. 

Now  he  has  the  young  man — no  longer  so  young 
— exactly  where  his  sugar  plantation  wants  him. 
On  thirty-six  cents  a  day  there  is  no  possibility  of 
a  laborer's  paying  a  debt  of  a  hundred  or  more 
pesos  and  moving  away,  and  if  he  attempts  to  de- 
part without  paying  it,  a  word  from  the  hacendado 
to  his  friend  the  jefe  politico  would  suflice  to  land 
him  in  jail  and  keep  him  there.  It  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  on  some  haciendas,  perhaps  on  many,  this 
form  of  slaver}^  is  a  happier,  a  more  comfortable  ar- 
rangement than  would  be  the  freedom  so  energet- 
ically insisted  on  in  the  constitution.  Still,  slavery 
is  neither  a  pretty  word  nor  a  pretty  idea,  and  yet, 
in  spite  of  the  constitution,  the  idea  obtains  in 
Mexico  quite  as  it  obtains  in  the  United  States. 

Then  again  you  read  with  satisfaction  that  among 
other  forms  of  freedom — "  freedom  of  education, 
freedom  to  exercise  the  liberal  professions,  freedom 
of  thought,"  and  so  on — the  freedom  of  the  press 
is  guaranteed ;  guaranteed,  that  is  to  say,  with  the 
reservation    that    "  private    rights    and    the    public 

i8 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

peace  shall  not  be  violated."  The  manner  in  which 
this  reservation  can  be  construed,  however,  does  not 
occur  to  you  until  you  read  in  El  Imparcial  or 
in  the  Mexican  Herald — the  best  Spanish  and 
American  daily  papers — an  account  of,  let  us  say,  a 
strike  of  the  mill  operatives  at  Orizaba,  and  then, 
a  week  later,  chance  to  learn  what  actually  hap- 
pened. 

"  I  see  by  the  Herald  that  you  had  a  little  strike 
at  Orizaba  the  other  day,"  you  remark  to  the 
middle-aged  British  manager  of  a  large  Orizaba 
jute  mill,  with  whom  you  find  yourself  in  the  same 
swimming  pond  at  the  baths  of  Tehuacan.  "  The 
Herald  said  that  in  a  clash  with  the  troops  several 
strikers  were  killed  and  twenty-five  w^ere  injured." 

"  Did  it  indeed  ?  "  remarks  the  manager  dryly, 
and  later,  when  you  are  sitting  together  in  the  sun 
after  your  bath,  he  explains  that  the  strike  was 
an  incipient  revolution  engineered  by  a  junta  in 
St.  Louis,  that  the  Government  sent  down  a  regi- 
ment from  the  City  of  IMexico,  that  in  an  im- 
promptu sort  of  way  six  hundred  strikers  were 
immediately  shot,  and  that  the  next  morning  thirty- 
four  were  formally,  elaborately,  and  oflficially  exe- 
cuted. This  prompt  and  heroic  measure,  he  in- 
forms you,  ended  both  the  strike  and  the  incipient 

19 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

revolution,  and  as  you  compare  what  you  have  read 
in  the  papers  with  what  is  the  truth,  you  can  tell 
yourself  that  it  has  also  ended  your  illusions  as  to 
the  freedom  of  the  Mexican  press. 

In  fact  you  begin  to  realize  why,  when  you  ask 
American  residents  of  the  country  for  information, 
their  replies  are  usually  so  vague,  so  contradictory, 
so  uninforming.  It  is  not,  as  a  rule,  because  they 
know  too  little,  but  because  they  know  too  much. 
Theoretical  Mexico — the  Mexico  of  constitutions, 
reform  laws,  statutes,  and  books  of  travel — has 
ceased,  long  since,  vitally  to  concern  them.  It  is 
Mexico  as  they  day  by  day  find  it  that  interests 
them  and  that  in  the  least  counts.  And  practical, 
every-day  Mexico  is  an  entirely  different,  infinitely 
more  mj^sterious,  fascinating  affair. 

"  Does  it  rain  here  in  summer  as  much  as  it  does 
in  winter?"  I  once  asked  a  Mexican  lady  in  a 
saturated  mountain  village  in  the  State  of  Vera 
Cruz. 

"  No  hay  reglas  fijas,  senor  "  (there  are  no  fixed 
rules),  she  replied,  after  a  thoughtful  silence,  with  a 
shrug. 

No  hay  reglas  fijas!  It  is  not  perhaps  a  detailed 
description  of  the  great  Don  Porfirio's  republic, 
but  it  is  a  consummate  epitome,  and  once  you  have 

20 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

committed  it  to  memory  and  "  taken  it  to  heart," 
your  literary  pursuits  begin  to  languish.  After 
traveling  for  three  weeks  in  Mexico,  almost  anyone 
can  write  an  entertaining  and  oracular  volume,  but 
after  living  there  for  several  years,  the  oracle — un- 
less subsidized  by  the  Government — has  a  tendency 
to  become  dumb.  For,  in  a  country  where  theory 
and  practice  are  so  at  variance,  personal  experience 
becomes  the  chart  by  which  one  is  accustomed  to 
steer,  and  although  it  is  a  valuable  one,  it  may, 
for  a  hundred  quaint  reasons,  be  entirely  different 
from  that  of  the  man  whose  ranch,  or  mine,  or 
coffee  place  adjoins  one's  own. 

In  just  this,  I  feel  sure,  lies  much  of  the  indis- 
putable charm  of  Mexico.  No  hay  reglas  fijas. 
Everyone's  experience  is  different,  and  everyone,  in 
a  sense,  is  a  pioneer  groping  his  way — like  Cortes 
on  his  prodigious  march  up  from  the  sea.  One 
never  knows,  from  the  largest  to  the  smallest  cir- 
cumstances of  life,  just  what  to  expect,  and  Ultimate 
Truth  abideth  not.  This  is  not  so  much  because 
Mexicans  are  instinctive  and  facile  liars,  as  be- 
cause the  usual  methods  of  ascertaining  and  dis- 
seminating news  are  not  employed.  At  home  we 
demand  facts  and  get  them.  In  Mexico  one  sub- 
sists  on   rumor   and   never   demands  anything.      A 

21 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

well-regulated,  systematic,  and  precise  person  al- 
ways detests  Mexico  and  can  rarely  bring  himself 
to  say  a  kind  word  about  anything  in  it,  including 
the  scenery.  But  if  one  is  not  inclined  to  exag- 
gerate the  importance  of  exactitude  and  is  per- 
petually interested  in  the  casual,  the  florid,  and  the 
problematic,  Mexico  is  one  long,  carelessly  written 
but  absorbing  romance. 


Ill 

SUPERFICIALLY,  Mexico  Is  a  prolonged  ro- 
mance. For  even  its  brutal  realities — of  which 
there  are  many — are  the  realities  of  an  in- 
tensely pictorial  people  among  surroundings  that,  to 
Northern  eyes,  are  never  quite  commonplace.  I 
once,  for  instance,  saw  a  plucky  little  policeman 
shoot  and  kill  an  insanely  drunken  shoemaker  who, 
in  the  marketplace  a  few  minutes  before,  apropos 
of  nothing  except  the  fact  that  he  was  insanely 
drunk,  had  cut  the  throat  of  a  young  milkman.  The 
policeman  pursued  him  in  his  mad  flight  for  home 
and,  just  as  they  passed  me  on  a  deserted  street 
near  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  returned  a  quick 
stab  in  the  stomach  from  the  shoemaker's  knife  (still 
reeking  with  the  milkman's  blood)  by  a  revolver 
shot.  They  then  both  collapsed  in  a  mud  puddle, 
and  to  me  was  appointed  the  role  of  arousing  the 
neighborhood,  unbuttoning  the  policeman's  clothes 
and  slipping  two  pillows  under  his  pale,  brave 
head. 

Of  course  it  was  the  most  squalid  of  incidents; 

23 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

precisely  what  happens  every  little  while  in  Ne\v 
York  and  Pittsburg  and  San  Francisco,  and  every 
few  minutes,  so  we  are  told,  in  Chicago.  But  in 
Barranca,  somehow,  the  squalor  of  the  affair  could 
not  successfully  compete  with  the  dramatic  interest 
and  the  stage-setting.  The  people  who  emerged 
from  their  blue  and  pink  and  yellow  and  green 
houses  at  my  alarm  (no  one  in  Mexico  is  alarmed 
by  the  sound  of  firearms)  the  distracted  widow — 
who,  however,  postponed  complete  distraction  until 
after  she  had  carefully  gone  through  her  dead  hus- 
band's pockets — the  pompous  arrival  of  the  chief 
of  police,  the  color  and  costuming  and  arrange- 
ment of  it  all,  were  far  too  like  the  last  scenes  of 
"  Carmen  "  or  "  Cavalleria  Rusticana  "  to  permit 
of  one's  experiencing  any  but  an  agreeably  theatri- 
cal sensation  of  horror. 

I  strolled  away  after  the  shoemaker  was  removed 
to  the  police  station  and  the  canvas-covered  litter 
had  been  sent  back  for  the  gasping  policeman,  ask- 
ing myself  by  what  strange  alchemy  drunkenness, 
murder,  and  retribution  in  a  mud  puddle  could  be 
made  so  entertaining.  The  brutish  spectacle,  I 
realized,  ought  to  have  shocked  me,  and  the  re- 
mainder of  my  walk  should  have  been  spent  in  re- 
flecting that  the  world  was  a  very  wicked  place. 

24 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

But  I  had  not  been  shocked  at  all,  and  the  world 
just  then  seemed  not  so  much  wicked  as  unusually 
interesting.  And  this,  I  flatter  myself,  was  not 
on  my  part  a  moral  obtuseness,  but  an  innate 
quality  of  the  general  Mexican  scene.  For  it  is 
always  pictorial  and  always  dramatic;  it  is  not  only 
invariably  a  painting,  but  the  kind  of  painting  that 
tells  a  stor}^  Paintings  that  tell  stories  are  de- 
clared by  critics  to  be  "  bad  art."  Perhaps  this 
is  why  so  many  travelers  in  Mexico  find  so  little 
to  admire. 

At  first,  I  confess,  almost  everybody  in  the  repub- 
lic looks  like  a  home-made  cigar.  But  when  your 
eyes  have  become  properly  focused,  it  is  difficult  to 
remember  having  thought  of  so  cheap  a  companson. 
Whether  your  relations  with  the  people  be  agree- 
able or  otherwise,  you  cannot  but  admit,  after  be- 
coming used  to  the  type,  that  there  is  among  all 
classes  an  extraordinary  amount  of  beauty.  In 
every  Mexican  crowd  there  are,  naturally,  a  great 
many  ugly  persons  and  plain  persons  and  average- 
looking  persons.  An  omnipotent  Creator  for,  no 
doubt,  some  perfectly  good  reason  that  surpasseth 
all  my  little  understanding,  chooses,  in  perpetuating 
the  human  race,  to  depart,  as  a  rule,  very  far  from 
perfection  and  even  from  charm.  But  in  Mexico, 
3  25 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

although  the  departure  can  be  as  far,  it  is  somehow 
not  as  frequent. 

In  its  way,  the  mixture  of  Spaniard  and  tropical 
Indian — which  was  the  original  recipe  for  making 
the  contemporary  Mexican — is  physically  a  pleas- 
ing one.  It  isn't  our  way,  but  one  doesn't  after 
a  while  find  it  less  attractive  for  that.  The  Indians, 
in  the  part  of  Mexico  I  happen  to  know  best,  have 
at  least  the  outward  characteristics  of  a  "  gentle  " 
race.  Even  when  they  are  tall,  they  are  inevitably 
and — one  might  almost  say — incorrigibly  plump. 
One  never  ceases  to  marvel  at  the  superhuman 
strength  existing  beneath  the  pretty  and  effeminate 
modeling  of  their  arms  and  legs  and  backs.  Except 
when  they  grow  old  and  wither  up,  which  they  do, 
like  all  tropical  races,  while  they  are  still  young, 
they  yet  display  no  angles.  However  great  may 
be  their  muscular  development  from  trotting  up  and 
down  perpendicular  mountain  trails  with  incredible 
loads  of  corn,  or  pottery,  or  tiles,  or  firewood,  or 
human  beings  on  their  backs,  the  muscles  them- 
selves never  stand  out.  The  legs  of  an  American 
"  strong  man  "  look  usually  like  an  anatomical 
chart,  but  the  legs  of  the  most  powerful  Totonac 
Indian— and  the  power  of  many  of  them  is  beyond 
belief — would  serve  admirably  as  one  of  those  ideal- 

26 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ized  extremities  on  which  women's  hosiery  is  dis- 
played in  shop  windows.  In  spite  of  their  con- 
stantly surprising  exhibitions  both  of  unpremedi- 
tated strength  and  long  endurance,  there  is  in  the 
general  aspect  of  their  physique  more  of  prettiness 
than  of  vigor,  more  grace  than  virility. 

With  these  people  and  others  like  them,  the 
Spaniards  began  to  mingle  in  the  year  15 19,  and 
from  the  union  of  Spanish  men  and  aboriginal  wom- 
en sprang  the  Mexican  of  to-day.  •  In  them  the 
physical  traits  of  both  races  are  obvious.  If,  by 
alliance,  the  native  lost  some  of  his  round,  sleek 
modeling,  the  conqueror  renounced  much  of  his 
gauntness  and  austerity.  For  the  modern  Mexican, 
roughly  speaking,  is  neither  a  rugged  type  nor  an 
unmanly  one.  He  is,  as  a  rule,  a  "  spare,"  small- 
waisted  creature  whose  muscles,  when  he  has  any, 
show — unlike  those  of  the  pure  Indian — in  the 
ordinary  way,  but  whose  small  feet  and  slender, 
beautiful  hands  are  deceptive.  A  cargador  of  my 
acquaintance,  whose  hands  are  like  those  of  a  slim 
girl,  and  who,  if  he  wore  shoes,  would  require  a 
narrow  five,  thinks  nothing  of  transporting  on  his 
back  from  the  railway  station  to  the  center  of  the 
town,  a  distance  of  more  than  a  mile  up  a  steep 
hill,   a   gigantic  trunk    (the  kind    that  used   to   be 

27 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

known  as  a  "Saratoga"),  a  smaller  trunk,  half 
a  dozen  "  dress-suit  cases,"  a  bundle  of  rugs,  and 
a  steamer  chair.  They  by  no  means  lack  strength, 
but  it  is  more  often  than  not  concealed  in  a  body 
all  sallow  slenderness  and  grace.  And  gracefulness 
in  a  nation  is  a  characteristic  no  good  American 
fresh  from  "  God's  country  " — whatever  that  patri- 
otic if  strangely  un-Christian  phrase  may  mean — 
can  in  his  heart  of  hearts  forgive.  The  typical 
Mexican,  although  not  effeminately,  is  delicately 
formed,  and,  in  addition  to  the  prevailing  lightness 
and  sensitiveness  of  his  structure,  a  great  factor  in 
the  general  high  average  of  his  good  looks  is  the 
almost  complete  elimination  of  the  matter  of  com- 
plexion. 

With  Northern  races  it  is  difficult  to  disassociate 
the  thought  of  beauty  in  either  sex  from  a  certain 
clear  glowing  qualitj^  of  the  epidermis  known  as  "  a 
complexion."  But  in  Mexico  this  consideration — 
in  spite  of  the  quarter  of  an  inch  of  powder  which 
the  ladies  of  the  upper  classes  apply  to  their  faces 
on  a  substratum  of  glycerin — does  not  enter.  You 
know  that  even  under  the  powder  all  Mexican 
complexions  approximate  a  satisfactory  cafe  au  lait 
standard,  and  that,  if  the  owners  are  not  positively 
suffering  from  smallpox,  they  are  all  good.     They 

28 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

impress  you,  after  your  eyes  become  acclimated,  as 
being  an  extraordinarily  ornamental  race,  and  it  is 
always  amusing  to  notice  that,  however  strong  may 
be  the  aversion  to  them  of  an  American  or  British 
resident,  he  cannot  refrain  now  and  then  from  an 
involuntary  tribute  to  their  unconscious  habit  of 
quietly  or  violently  "  composing "  themselves  at 
every  moment  of  their  lives  into  some  kind  of  a 
frameable  picture. 

"  I  hate  'em  all,"  an  American  building  con- 
tractor once  exclaimed  to  me  with  deep  sincerity. 
"  But,"  he  added,  "  after  my  work  is  over  for  the 
day,  I  like  to  sit  on  a  bench  in  the  plaza  and  look 
at  'em.  I  sit  there  a  couple  of  hours  every  even- 
ing. Even  when  the  rascals  ain't  doing  anything 
in  particular,  you  always  sort  of  feel  as  if  there 
was  something  doing." 

This  feeling — for  the  accurate  description  of 
which  I  was  truly  grateful — is  largely  responsible 
in  Alexico  for  the  plaza  and  balcony  habit  that 
one  immediately  acquires  and  that  becomes  one's 
chief  form  of  diversion.  In  a  small  city  of  the 
United  States  or  in  England,  even  a  person  of  un- 
limited leisure  would  have  to  be  doddering,  or  an 
invalid  or  a  tramp,  before  he  would  consent  to 
sit  daily  for  two  or  three  hours  on  a  bench   in   a 

29 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

public  square,  or  lean  over  a  balcony  watching  the 
same  people  pursue  their  ordinary  vocations  in  the 
street  below.  The  monotony  of  the  thing,  the  pro- 
cession's dead  level  of  prosperous  mediocrity,  would 
very  soon  prove  intolerable,  and  he  would  find 
some  one,  anyone,  to  talk  to  or  endeavor  to  forget 
himself  in  a  book  or  a  newspaper. 

In  Mexico,  however,  complete  idleness  is  rarely 
a  bore.  "  Even  when  the  rascals  ain't  doing  any- 
thing in  particular,  you  always  sort  of  feel  as  if 
there  was  something  doing."  One  afternoon  in  a 
small  Mexican  town  I  kept  tab  from  my  balcony 
on  what,  for  about  eight  minutes,  took  place  in  the 
street  below.  Although  the  town  was  small  and 
the  day  an  unusually  quiet  one,  owing  to  a  fiesta 
in  the  neighborhood  to  which  many  of  the  inhabi- 
tants had  gone,  there  was  no  dearth  of  incident 
against  the  usual  background  of  big-hatted  carga- 
dores  waiting  for  emplo3'ment  in  the  middle  of  the 
street;  of  burros,  each  with  four  large  cobble- 
stones in  a  box  on  its  back;  of  biblical-looking  girls 
(an  endless  stream  of  them)  bearing  huge  water- 
jars  to  and  from  a  circular  fountain  lined  with 
pale-blue  tiles;  of  old  men  who  wail  at  intervals 
that  they  are  selling  pineapple  ice  cream ;  of  old 
women    with    handfuls    of    white  and    yellow   and 

30 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

green  lottery  tickets;  of  basket  sellers  and  sellers  of 
flowers  (the  kind  of  adorable  bouquets  that  haven't 
been  seen  anywhere  else  since  the  early  seventies; 
composed  of  damp  moss,  tinfoil,  toothpicks,  a  lace 
petticoat,  a  wooden  handle,  and,  yes,  some  flowers 
arranged  in  circles  according  to  color)  ;  of  mozos 
who  you  feel  sure  have  been  sent  on  an  errand  and 
told  to  "  come  right  back,"  but  who  have  appar- 
ently no  intention  of  returning  for  several  hours; 
of  ladies  draped  in  black  lace  on  their  way  to  medi- 
tate in  church;  of  hundreds  of  other  leisurely  mov- 
ing figures  that  were  as  a  bright-colored,  shifting 
chorus  to  the  more  striking  episodes. 

Item  one  (so  runs  my  page  of  hasty  notes)  : 
Three  rather  fragile-looking  young  men  swinging 
along  with  a  grand  piano  on  their  heads.  Under 
my  window  they  all  stop  a  moment  to  let  one  of 
them  ask  a  passerby  to  stick  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth 
and  light  it,  which  is  duly  done. 

Item  two:  A  flock  of  sheep  followed  by  a 
shepherd  in  clean  white  cotton  with  a  crimson 
sarape  around  his  shoulders.  He  looks  like  Ved- 
der's  Lazarus.  The  sheep  have  just  piled  into  the 
open  door  of  the  hotel  and  are  trying  to  come  up- 
stairs. In  the  excitement  a  new-born  lamb  has  its 
leg   hurt.     The  shepherd   gathers   it   in    his  arms, 

31 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

wraps  it  in  the  sarape,  thoughtfully  kisses  it  twice 
on  the  head  and  proceeds. 

Item  three:  A  funeral.  As  there  are  only  three 
streets  in  this  place  that  aren't  built  up  and  down  a 
mountain  side,  there  are  no  vehicles,  and  coffins,  like 
everything  else,  are  carried  on  men's  backs.  This 
is  an  unusually  expensive  coffin,  but  then  of  course 
the  silver  handles  are  only  hired  for  the  occasion. 
They'll  be  removed  at  the  grave,  as  otherwise  they 
would  be  dug  up  and  stolen.  I  wonder  why  women 
so  rarely  go  to  funerals  here  ?  There  is  a  string  of 
men  a  block  long,  but  no  women.  Some  of  them 
(probably  relatives)  have  in  their  hands  lighted 
candles  tied  with  crape.  They  are  nice,  fat  candles 
and  don't  blow  out.  Everybody  in  the  street  takes 
his  hat  off  as  the  cortege  passes. 

Item  four:  The  daily  pack  train  of  mules  from 
the  Concepcion  sugar  hacienda.  There  must  be  two 
hundred  and  fifty  of  them,  and  their  hoofs  clatter 
on  the  cobblestones  like  magnified  hail.  The  street 
is  jammed  with  them,  and  where  the  sidewalk  nar- 
rows to  almost  nothing,  people  are  trying  to  efface 
themselves  against  the  wall.  A  wonderful  exhibi- 
tion of  movement  and  color  in  the  blazing  sunlight: 
the  warm  seal-brown  of  the  mules,  the  paler  yellow- 
brown   of   the   burlap    in    which  are  wrapped  the 

32 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

conical  sugar  loaves  (eight  to  a  mule),  with  the 
arrieros  in  yellow  straw  hats,  brilliant  blue  shirts 
and  scarlet  waist  bandas  bringing  up  the  rear. 

Item  five:  A  dog  fight. 

Item  six:  Another  and  much  worse  dog  fight. 

Item  seven:  An  Indian  woman  with  apparently 
a  whole  poultry  farm  half  concealed  upon  her  per- 
son. She  calls  up  to  ask  if  I  would  like  to  buy  a 
chicken.  Why  on  earth  should  a  young  man  on 
a  balcony  of  a  hotel  bedroom  like  to  buy  a  chicken? 

Item  eight:  An  acquaintance  makes  a  megaphone 
of  his  hands  and  inquires  if  I  am  very  busy.  I 
reply,  "  Yes,  frightfully,"  and  we  adjourn  to  the 
plaza  for  the  afternoon. 


IV 


THE  inability  of  people  in  general  to  think  for 
themselves — the  inevitableness  with  which 
they  welcome  an  opinion,  a  phrase,  a  catch- 
w^ord,  if  it  be  sufficiently  indiscriminating  and  easy 
to  remember,  and  the  fashion  in  which  they  then 
solemnly  echo  it,  are  never  more  displayed  than 
when  they  are  commenting  upon  a  race  not  their 
own.  Sometimes  this  rubber-stamp  sort  of  criti- 
cism is  eulogistic  in  tone  as  when,  for  instance,  a 
few  years  ago  it  was  impossible  in  the  United  States 
to  speak  of  the  Japanese  without  calling  forth  from 
some  tedious  sounding-board,  who  couldn't  have  told 
a  Jap  from  a  Filipino,  the  profound  exclamation: 
"What  a  wonderful  little  people  they  are!"  But 
more  often  than  not,  ignorant  criticism  of  a  foreign 
country  is  also  adverse.  For  one  nation  cannot 
altogether  understand  another,  and  if  it  is  true  that 
"  to  understand  everything  is  to  pardon  everything," 
it  must  also  be  true  that  unforgiveness  is  one  of 
the  penalties  of  being  misunderstood. 

It    is   the   vast   throng   of    fairly    well   educated 

34 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"  people  in  general  "  who  are  forever  divulging  the 
news  that  "  Englishmen  have  no  sense  of  humor," 
that  "  the  French  are  very  immoral,"  that  "  all 
Italians  steal  and  none  of  them  wash,"  that  "  every 
German  eats  with  his  knife  and  keeps  his  bedroom 
windows  closed  at  night,"  that  "  the  inhabitants  of 
Russia  are  barbarians  with  a  veneer  of  civilization  " 
(how  they  cherish  that  word  "  veneer  "  !),  and  that 
"  the  Scotch  are  stingy." 

The  formula  employed  in  the  case  of  Mexicans 
runs  usually  something  like  this:  "They're  the 
laziest  people  in  the  world,  and  although  they  seem 
to  treat  you  politely  they  are  all  treacherous  and 
dishonest.  Their  politeness  is  merely  on  the  sur- 
face ;  it  doesn't  come  from  the  heart  " — as  does  the 
exquisite  courtesy  we  are  so  accustomed  to  receive 
from  everj'body  in  the  United  States,  one  is  tempted 
to  add,  without,  however,  doing  so.  For  what, 
after  all,  is  the  use  of  entering  into  a  discussion  with 
the  sort  of  person  who  supposes  that  his  own  or 
anyone's  else  politeness  "  comes  from  the  heart,"  or 
has,  in  fact,  anything  to  do  with  the  heart?  Po- 
liteness, of  course,  is,  all  the  world  over,  just  the 
pleasing  surface  quality  we  should  expect  it  to  be 
from  the  derivation  of  the  word.  Even  in  Kansas 
or  South  Boston  we  do  not  necessarily  wish  to  die 

35 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

for  the  old  gentleman  whom  we  allow  to  pass 
through  the  doorway  first,  and  the  act  of  taking 
off  one's  hat  to  a  lady  scarcely  convicts  one  of 
a  secret  passion  for  her.  But  it  is  odd  what  depths 
are  demanded  of  Mexican  politeness,  which — ex- 
cept for  the  fact  that  there  is  much  more  of  it — 
is,  like  our  own,  an  outward  "  polish  "  and  noth- 
ing else. 

If,  however,  there  is  anything  valuable  in  polite- 
ness as  such,  the  Mexicans  have  over  us  at  least 
one  extensive  advantage.  For  in  Mexico  the  habit 
of  politeness  in  its  most  elaborate  form  is  so  uni- 
versal that  the  very  occasional  lack  of  it  in  any- 
body gives  one  the  sensation  of  being  not  only  sur- 
prised but  somewhat  hurt.  If,  for  instance,  a 
street-car  conductor  in  taking  my  ticket  should  fail 
to  say  "  Thank  you,"  and  neglect  on  receiving  it 
to  make  toward  me  a  short,  quick  gesture  of  the 
hand — something  between  a  wave  and  flourish — 
I  should  realize  that,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  his 
manners  had  not  risen  to  the  ordinary  standard, 
and  wonder  why  he  had  chosen  to  be  indifferent 
and  rather  rude.  This  naturally  would  not  apply 
in  the  City  of  Mexico,  where,  as  in  all  great  capi- 
tals, the  mixture  of  nationalities  has  had  a  no- 
ticeable influence  upon  many  native  characteristics. 

36 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

But  in  provincial   Mexico — wherever  there  was  a 
street  car — it  would  be  true. 

In  riding  along  a  country  road  it  is  likely  to  be 
considered  an  example  of  gringo  brutalidad  if  one 
does  not  speak  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child  one 
meets  or  overtakes.  And  completely  to  fulfill  the 
requirements  of  rural  etiquette,  the  greeting  must 
be  not  collective  but  individual;  everybody  in  one 
group  murmurs  something — usually  "  Adios  " — for 
the  especial  benefit  of  everybody  in  the  other.  The 
first  time  I  took  part  in  this — as  it  seemed  to  me 
then — extraordinary  performance,  my  party  of  three 
had  met  another  party  of  equal  number  on  a  nar- 
row path  in  the  mountains,  and  as  we  scraped  past 
one  another,  the  word  adios  in  tired  but  distinct 
tones  was  uttered  exactly  eighteen  times — a  posi- 
tive litany  of  salutation  that  nearly  caused  me  to 
roll  off  my  mule.  It  is  a  polite  sociable  custom 
and  I  like  it,  but  under  certain  circumstances  it  can 
become  more  exhausting  than  one  would  suppose. 
In  approaching — on  Sunday  afternoon,  toward  the 
end  of  a  long  hot  ride — a  certain  little  town  (which 
no  doubt  is  to-day  very  much  as  it  was  when  Cortes 
three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  years  ago  men- 
tioned it  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Charles  V)  I 
have  met  as  many  as  three  hundred  persons  return- 

37 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

ing  from  market  to  their  ranchitos  and  villages. 
Adios  is  a  beautiful  word,  but — well,  after  one 
has  said  it  and  nothing  else  with  a  parched  throat 
and  an  air  of  sincerity  for  the  three  hundredth 
time,  one  no  longer  much  cares.  However,  if  you 
don't  know  the  returning  marketers  it  is  safe  to 
assume  that  they  all  know  a  great  deal  about  you, 
and  for  a  variety  of  reasons  it  is  well,  however  tired 
one  may  be,  to  observe  the  convention. 

With  the  pure-blooded  Indians  along  the  Gulf 
coast  there  is,  when  they  happen  to  know  you, 
an  elaborateness  about  your  meetings  and  partings 
on  the  road  that  amounts  to  a  kind  of  ritual.  The 
sparkling  conversation  that  follows  is  an  ordinary 
example  and  an  accurate  translation  of  what  is  said. 
During  its  progress,  hands  are  grasped  and  shaken 
several  times — the  number  being  in  direct  ratio  to 
the  number  of  drinks  your  friend  has  had  during 
the  day. 

"Good  day,  Don  Carlitos.     How  are  you?" 

"  Good  day,  Vicente "  (or  Guadalupe  or  Ipifi- 
genio).     "Very  well,  thank  you.     How  are  you?" 

"  Thanks  to  God,  there  is  no  change!  How  are 
Don  Guillermo  and  your  mamma?" 

"  Many  thanks,  they  are  as  always."  (A  pause.) 
"  The  roads  are  bad." 

38 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"  Yes,  senor,  very  bad.     Is  there  much  coffee?  " 

"  Enough." 

"  I  am  coming  to  pick  next  week."  ( He  really 
isn't  and  he  knows  I  know  he  isn't — but  the  remark 
delicately  suggests  that  there   is  no  ill  feeling.) 

"  Come  when  you  wish  to.  Well,  until  we  meet 
again." 

"  Until  we  meet  again — if  God  wishes  it.  May 
you  go  with  God !  " 

"  Many  thanks,  Vicente  "  (or  Ipifigenio  or  Guad- 
alupe).    "  Remain  with  God!  " 

"  Thank  you,  senor — if  God  wishes  it." 
Adios. 
Adios. 

Toward  women  we  are  everywhere  accustomed 
to  a  display  of  more  or  less  politeness,  but  in 
Mexico,  under  the  ordinary  circumstances  of  life, 
men  of  all  classes  are  polite  to  one  another.  Ac- 
quaintances take  off  their  hats  both  when  they  meet 
and  part,  and  I  have  heard  a  half-naked  laborer 
bent  double  under  a  sack  of  coffee-berries  murmur, 
"  With  your  permission,"  as  he  passed  in  front  of 
a  bricklayer  who  was  repairing  a  wall.  Even  the 
children — who  are  not  renowned  in  other  lands  for 
observing  any  particular  code  of  etiquette  among 
themselves — treat  one  another,  as  a   rule,   with  an 

39 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

astonishing  consideration.  Once  in  the  plaza  at 
Tehuacan  I  found  myself  behind  three  little  boys 
of  about  six  or  seven  who  were  sedately  strolling 
around  and  around  while  the  band  played,  quite 
in  the  manner  of  their  elders.  One  of  them  had 
a  cent,  and  after  asking  the  other  two  how  they 
would  most  enjoy  having  it  invested,  he  bought 
from  a  dulcero  one  of  those  small,  fragile  creations 
of  egg  and  sugar  known,  I  believe,  as  a  "  kiss." 
This  he  at  once  undertook  to  divide,  with  the  re- 
sult that  when  the  guests  had  each  received  a  pinch 
of  the  ethereal  structure,  there  was  nothing  left  for 
the  host  but  two  or  three  of  his  own  sticky  little 
fingers.  He  looked  a  trifle  surprised  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  I  thought  it  would  be  only  natural  and 
right  for  him  to  demand  a  taste  of  the  others.  But 
instead  of  that  he  merely  licked  his  fingers  in 
silence  and  then  resumed  the  promenade  where  it 
had  been  left  off.  However,  the  general  seraphic- 
ness  of  Mexican  children  is  a  chapter  in  itself. 

"Is  that  your  horse?"  you  ask  of  a  stranger 
with  whom  you  have  entered  into  conversation  on 
the  road. 

"  No,  senor — it  is  yours,"  he  is  likely  to  reply 
with  a  slight  bow.  And  perhaps  it  is  by  reason  of 
formulae  like  this  that  the  great  public  characterizes 

40 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Mexican  politeness  as  "  all  on  the  surface — not  from 
the  heart."  The  stranger's  answer,  naturally,  is 
just  a  pretty  phrase  But  all  politeness  is  largely 
verbal  and  the  only  difference  between  the  polite- 
ness of  Mexico  and  the  politeness  of  other  countries 
consists  of  the  fact  that,  first,  the  Spanish  language 
is  immensely  rich  in  pretty  phrases,  and,  secondly, 
that  literally  everyone  makes  use  of  them. 

One  of  the  most  amusing  manifestations  of  the 
state  of  mind  known  as  "  patriotism  "  is  the  fact  that 
every  nation  is  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  dis- 
honesty of  every  other.  From  end  to  end  of  Eu- 
rope the  United  States  is,  and  for  a  long  time  has 
been,  a  synonj^m  of  political  and  financial  corrup- 
tion. We  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  a  nation 
of  sharks  who  have  all  grown  fabulously  rich  by 
the  simple,  effective  method  of  eating  one  another 
— and  everybody  else — up.  This  is  not  perhaps  the 
topic  the  French  ambassador  picks  out  to  expound 
at  White  House  dinners,  nor  does  it  form  the  bur- 
den of  the  Duke  of  Abruzzi's  remarks  on  the  oc- 
casion of  planting  a  tree  at  Washington's  tomb.  It 
is  merely  a  conviction  of  the  great  majority  of  their 
fellow  countrymen  at  home.  On  the  other  hand, 
very  few  persons  with  a  drop  of  Anglo-Saxon 
blood  in  them  can  bring  themselves  to  admit — 
4  41 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

much  less  to  feel — that  the  "  Latin  "  races  have 
any  but  a  shallow  and  versatile  conception  of  hon- 
esty and  truth.  It  is  a  provision  of  nature  that 
one's  own  people  should  have  a  monopoly  of  all 
the  virtues.  Uncle  John,  who  was  given  short 
change  for  a  napoleon  by  a  waiter  at  the  Jardin 
de  Paris,  is  more  than  sustained  in  his  original 
opinion  of  the  French.  And  Aunt  Lizzie,  who  paid 
a  dollar  and  a  half  for  a  trunk  strap  at  the  lead- 
ing harness  shop  of  Pekin,  Illinois,  and  then  had  it 
stolen  at  the  Laredo  customhouse,  will  all  her  life 
believe  that  the  chief  occupation  of  everyone  in 
Mexico,  from  President  Diaz  down,  is  the  theft 
of  trunk  straps.  This  sounds  like  trifling — but  it 
is  the  way  in  which  one  country's  opinion  of  an- 
other is  really  formed. 

A  discussion  of  the  comparative  honesty  of  na- 
tions must  always  be  a  futile  undertaking,  as  a 
considerable  number  of  persons  in  every  country 
are  dishonest.  I  know  for  a  fact  that  when  Aunt 
Lizzie  alighted  at  Laredo  to  have  her  trunk  ex- 
amined, she  saw  the  strap  "  with  her  own  eyes," 
and  that  somewhere  between  the  border  and  her 
final  destination  it  miraculously  disappeared.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  always  leave  everything  I  own 
scattered  about   my   room    in   Mexican   hotels,   be- 

42 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

cause  I  am  lazy,  and  various  articles  that  I  should 
regret  to  lose  I  have  sometimes  forgotten  to  pack, 
because  I  am  careless.  But  nothing  has  ever  been 
stolen  from  me  in  Mexico,  and  when  I  have  re- 
quested the  innkeeper  by  letter  or  telegram,  "  Please 
to  send  me  the  two  diamond  tiaras  together  with 
the  emerald  stomacher  I  inadvertently  left  in  the 
second  drawer  of  the  washstand,"  they  have  in- 
variably come  to  me  by  return  express — neither  of 
which  experiences  (Aunt  Lizzie's  and  mine)  proves 
anything  whatever  about  anybody. 

The  question  of  "  laziness "  would  be  easy  to 
dispose  of  if  one  could  simply  say  that  just  as  there 
are  honest  and  dishonest  Mexicans,  there  are  in- 
dolent and  energetic  Mexicans.  But  somehow  one 
can't.  Many  of  them  are  extremely  industrious, 
many  of  them  work,  when  they  do  work,  as  hard 
and  as  long  as  it  is  possible  for  human  beings  to  bear 
fatigue — and  yet,  of  what  we  know  as  "  energy," 
I  have  seen  little  or  nothing.  For  whatever  may 
be  the  word's  precise  definition,  it  expresses  to  most 
of  us  an  adequate  power  operating  under  the  lash 
of  a  perpetual  desire  to  get  something  done.  In 
Mexico  there  are  many  kinds  of  adequate  power, 
but  apparently  the  desire  to  get  anything  done  does 
not  exist.     The  inhabitants,   from  peon  to  profes- 

43 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

sional  man,  conduct  their  affairs  as  if  everybody 
were  going  "  to  live,"  as  Marcus  Aurelius  says, 
"  ten  thousand  years!  " 

Among  the  lower  classes,  even  leaving  out  of  con- 
sideration the  influence  of  a  tropical  and  semi- 
tropical  climate,  it  is  not  difficult  to  account  for 
this  lack  of  energy.  No  people  whose  diet  con- 
sists chiefly  of  tortillas,  chile,  black  coffee,  and  cigar- 
ettes are  ever  going  to  be  lashed  by  the  desire  to 
accomplish.  This  is  the  diet  of  babies  as  soon  as 
they  are  weaned.  I  have  heard  proud  mothers  at 
country  dances  compare  notes,  while  their  men  were 
playing  monte  around  a  kerosene  torch  stuck  in  the 
ground. 

"  My  little  boy  " — aged  three — "  won't  look  at 
a  tortilla  unless  it  is  covered  with  chile,"  one  of 
them  explains. 

"Does  he  cry  for  coffee?"  inquires  another. 
"  My  baby  " — aged  two  and  a  half — "  screams  and 
cries  unless  we  give  her  coffee  three  and  four  times 
a  day."  It  is  not  surprising  that  a  population  per- 
petually In  the  throes  of  intestinal  disorder  should 
be  somewhat  lacking  in  energy. 

Furthermore,  they  are  a  religious,  or  rather  a 
superstitious  people,  given  to  observing  as  many 
of   the   innumerable   feasts  on    the   calendar   as   Is 

44 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

compatible  with  making  both  ends  approach — one 
hesitates  to  say  meet.  The  entire  working  force 
of  an  isolated  ranch  will  abruptly  cease  from  its 
labors  on  hearing  from  some  meddlesome  passerby 
that  in  more  populous  localities  the  day  is  being 
celebrated.  That  it  is,  may  or  may  not  be  a  fact, 
and  if  a  supply  of  liquor  cannot  be  procured  there 
is  no  very  definite  way  of  enjoying  unpremeditated 
idleness.  But  a  fiesta  is  a  fiesta,  and  everj^one 
stands  about  all  day  unwilling  to  work,  unable 
to  play — the  prey  of  ennui  and  capricious  tempers. 
Possibly  it  is  mere  hair  splitting  to  draw  a  dis- 
tinction between  laziness  and  lack  of  energy,  but 
although  climate  and  heredity  will  abide  and  con- 
tinue to  restrain  the  lower  classes  from  undue  con- 
tinuity of  effort,  even  as  they  still  do  the  wealthy 
and  educated,  it  is  not  fantastic  to  believe  that 
education  and  a  more  nourishing,  less  emotional 
diet  (both  are  on  the  way)  will  stimulate  in  the 
Mexican  people  some  of  the  latent  qualities  that  will 
absolve  them  from  the  popular  reproach  of  laziness. 


V 


ONE  December  morning,  while  I  was  aim- 
lessly strolling  in  the  white,  dry  sunlight 
of  Puebla,  I  wandered  into  the  cathedral. 
The  semireligious,  semiculinary  festival  known  as 
Christmas  had  come  and  gone  for  me  in  Jalapa, 
but  as  soon  as  I  went  into  the  church  and  walked 
beyond  the  choir,  the  awkward  situation  of  which 
in  Spanish  cathedrals  shows  on  the  part  of  catholics 
an  unusual  indifference  to  general  impressiveness,  it 
was  apparent — gorgeously,  overwhelmingly  appar- 
ent— that  here  Christmas  still  lingered.  This 
cathedral  is  always  gorgeous  and  always  somewhat 
overpowering,  for,  unlike  any  other  I  can  recall, 
that  which,  perhaps,  was  the  original  scheme  of 
decoration  looks  as  if  it  had  been  completed  a  few- 
moments  before  one's  arrival.  We  have  learned  to 
expect  in  these  places  worn  surfaces,  tarnished  gilt, 
a  sense  of  invisible  dust  and  tones  instead  of  colors. 
So  few  of  them  look  as  they  were  intended  to  look 
that,  just  as  we  prefer  Greek  statues  unpainted,  we 
prefer  the  decorations  of   cathedrals   to   be   in   the 

46 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

nature  of  exquisite  effacement.  In  the  great  church 
of  Puebla,  however,  little  is  exquisite  and  certainly 
nothing  is  effaced.  On  entering,  one  is  at  first 
only  surprised  that  an  edifice  so  respectably  old  can 
be  so  jauntily  new.  But  when,  during  mass,  one 
passes  slightly  before  the  choir,  and  is  confronted  by 
the  first  possible  view  of  any  amplitude,  it  is  some- 
thing more  than  rhetoric  to  say  that  for  a  moment 
the  cathedral  of  Puebla  is  overpowering. 

The  use  of  gold  leaf  in  decoration  is  like  money. 
A  little  is  pleasant,  merely  too  much  is  vulgar;  but 
a  positively  staggering  amount  of  it  seems  to  justify 
Itself.  My  own  income  is  not  vulgar;  neither  Is 
Mr.  Rockefeller's.  The  ordinary  white  and  gold 
drawing-room  done  by  the  local  upholsterer  is  atro- 
ciously vulgar,  but  the  cathedral  of  Puebla  Is  not. 
Gold — polished,  glittering,  shameless  gold — blazes 
down  and  up  and  across  at  one;  from  the  stone 
rosettes  in  the  vaulting  overhead,  from  the  grilles 
in  front  of  the  chapels,  from  the  railings  between 
which  the  priests  walk  to  altar  ant!  choir,  from  the 
onyx  pulpit  and  the  barricade  of  gigantic  candle- 
sticks In  front  of  the  altar,  from  the  altar  Itself 
— one  of  those  carefully  insane  eighteenth-century 
affairs.  In  which  a  frankly  pagan  tiempollto  and 
great   lumps  of   Christian   symbolism   have   become 

47 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

gloriously  muddled  for  all  time.  Gold  flashes  in 
the  long  straight  sun  shafts  overhead,  twinkles  in 
the  candle  flames,  glitters  from  the  censers  and  the 
chains  of  the  censers.  The  back  of  the  priest  at 
the  altar  is  incrusted  with  gold,  and  to-day — for 
Christmas  lingers — all  the  pillars  from  capital  to 
base  are  swathed  in  the  finest  of  crimson  velvet, 
fringed  with  gold.  It  isn't  vulgar,  it  isn't  even 
gaudy.  It  has  surpassed  all  that  and  has  entered 
into  the  realm  of  the  bewildering — the  flabber- 
gastric. 

As  I  sank  upon  one  of  the  sparsely  occupied 
benches  "  para  los  senores,"  there  was  exhaled  from 
the  organ,  somewhere  behind  and  above  me,  a  dozen 
or  more  bars  of  Chopin.  During  the  many  sar- 
torial interims  of  the  mass  the  organ  coquetted  fre- 
quently with  Chopin  as  well  as  with  Saint-Saens, 
Massenet,  and  Gounod  in  some  of  his  less  popular 
but  as  successfully  cloying  moments — and  never 
anywhere  have  I  seen  so  much  incense.  As  a  rule, 
unless  one  sits  well  forward  in  churches,  the  in- 
cense only  tantalizes.  Swing  and  jerk  as  the  little 
boys  may,  it  persists  in  clinging  to  the  altar  and 
the  priests,  in  being  sucked  into  the  draught  of  the 
candle  flames  and  then  floating  up  to  the  sunlight 
of  the  dome.     It  rarely  reaches  the  populace  until 

48 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

It  has  become  cool  and  thin.  At  Pucbla  they  may- 
be more  prodigal  of  it,  or  they  may  use  a  different 
kind.  It  at  any  rate  belches  out  at  one  in  fat, 
satiating  clouds  of  pearl-gray  and  sea-blue,  and 
what  with  Chopin  and  all  the  little  gasping  flames, 
the  rich,  deliberate,  incrusted  group  about  the 
altar,  the  forest  of  crimson  pillars  and  the  surfeit 
of  gold,  I  experienced  one  of  those  agreeable,  harm- 
less, ecclesiastical  debauches  that  in  Mexico,  where 
the  apparatus  of  worship  does  not  often  rise  above 
the  tawdry,  and  tiie  music  is  almost  always  ex- 
ecrable, are  perforce  rare. 

Toward  the  end  of  it,  the  central  and  most 
splendid  figure  among  those  at  the  altar  turned 
to  execute  some  symbolic  gesture  and  I  recognized 
his  grace,  the  Bishop.  More  than  half  incrusted 
with  gold  and,  for  the  rest,  swathed  in  white  lace 
over 'purple,  he  was  far  more  splendid  than  when, 
two  years  before,  he  had  confirmed  my  godchild 
Geronimo,  son  of  Felipe,  in  the  weatherworn 
church  at  Mizantla.  But  he  was  none  the  less  the 
same  poisonous-looking  old  body  with  whom  on 
that  occasion  I  had  had  "  words."  I  recognized, 
among  other  things,  his  fat,  overhanging  underlip. 
By  its  own  weight  it  fell  outward  from  his  lower 
teeth,  turned  half  about  and  disclosed  a  rubbery  in- 

49 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

side  that,  with  Its  blue  veins  against  a  background 
of  congested  red,  had  reminded  me,  I  remember,  of 
a  piece  of  German  fancj^-work.  Undoubtedly  it 
was  his  grace  on  a  visit  to  a  neighboring  see  and. 
officiating  through  the  courtesy  of  a  brother  bishop 
in  the  great  cathedral. 

Strange,  I  thought,  that  such  a  looking  old  person 
should  be  associated  in  my  mind  with  so  pretty 
an  incident  and  so  springlike  a  day.  For  the  sight 
of  him  took  me  back,  as  the  saying  is,  to  a  hot, 
radiant  February  morning  when  the  sun  blazed 
down  upon  the  ranch  for  the  first  time  in  two 
weeks  and  I  had  ridden  into  the  village  to  have 
Geronimo,  a  charming  child  of  six,  confirmed. 
There  was  the  inevitable  Mexican  delay  in  start- 
ing, while  horses  and  mules  fled  around  the  pasture 
refusing  to  be  caught,  while  the  cook  made  out  "  la 
lista " — three  cents  worth  of  this  and  six  cents 
worth  of  that — while  mislaid  tenates  were  found, 
provided  with  string  handles  and  hung  over  pom- 
mels. But  we  staggered  ofif  at  last — Felipe  lead- 
ing on  foot  with  a  sky-blue  bundle  under  one  arm 
(it  was  a  clean  pair  of  trousers)  and  his  loose  white 
drawers  rolled  up  to  his  thighs.  I  wondered  why, 
on  this  great  occasion,  he  did  not  wear  the  necker- 
chief of  mauve  silk  we  had  given  him  at  Christmas 

50 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

until  a  moment  later  I  discovered  it  in  two  pieces 
around  the  necks  of  his  wife  and  Geronimo.  His 
wife  followed  him  on  a  horse,  and  Geronimo, 
astride  at  her  back,  clutched  at  her  waist  with 
one  hand  and  with  the  other  attempted  most  of 
the  way  in  to  prevent  his  cartwheel  of  a  hat  from 
bumping  against  his  mother's  shoulder  blades  in 
front  and  falling  off  behind.  Then  a  San  Juan  In- 
dian in  fluttering  white,  bearing  on  his  back  Felipe's 
sick  baby  in  a  basket,  pattered  along  over  the  mud- 
holes  with  the  aid  of  a  staff.  Trinidad,  the  mayor- 
domo,  followed  next  on  his  horse,  and  I  came  last 
on  a  mule,  from  where  I  could  see  the  others  van- 
ishing one  by  one  into  the  shady  jungle,  scrambling 
below^  me  down  wet,  rocky  hillsides  and  stringing 
through  the  hot  pastures  full  of  damp,  sweet  vapors 
and  hidden  birds  that  paused  and  listened  to  their 
own  languid  voices. 

The  river  was  high  and  swift  after  the  rain,  and 
for  those  who  counted  on  another's  legs  to  get  them 
across,  there  was  the  interminable  three  or  four 
minutes  when  one  takes  a  reef  in  one's  own,  un- 
conditionally surrenders  to  the  steed,  tries  not  to 
look  down  at  the  water,  and  with  a  pinched  smile 
at  the  opposite  shore  reflects  that:  "If  the  beast 
keeps  three  or  even  two  of  his  little  hoofs  on  the 

51 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

stones  at  the  same  time  until  we  reach  the  sand 
bar — how  trivial!  But  if  he  doesn't  he  will  go 
swirling  downstream  like  an  empty  barrel,  my  head 
will  smash  against  the  first  boulder,  and  it  will 
all  be  very  sad." 

The  bishop's  advent  had,  if  not  quite  the  im- 
portance of  a  fiesta,  at  least  the  enlivening  qualities 
of  a  fiestita.  There  was  so  much  movement  and 
talk  and  color  in  the  drowsy  town,  and  so  many 
drunken  Indians  shook  hands  with  me  and  patted 
me  on  the  back,  that  if  it  had  not  been  Thursday, 
I  should  have  known  it  was  Sunday.  The  bishop 
had  not  been  to  Mizantla  for  some  said  five  and 
others  eight  years.  But  in  either  period  it  seems 
that  unconfirmed  children  pile  up  amazingly. 
Grouped  about  the  weed-grown  open  space  on  the 
church's  shady  side  there  were  almost  four  hun- 
dred of  them,  not  including  parents  and  godparents, 
and  this  was  the  second  of  the  three  days'  oppor- 
tunity. 

But  there  was  the  same  vagueness  as  to  when 
the  ceremony  would  begin  that  there  had  been  about 
the  date  of  the  previous  visit.  Some,  remembering 
perhaps  that  most  gringos  have  an  inscrutable 
prejudice  in  favor  of  the  definite,  courteously  named 
an  hour — any  hour ;  two,  five,  half  past  six.    Others 

52 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

recalled  that  cvcnin<2;  was  the  time,  while  a  few 
assured  me  the  bishop  had  come  and  gone  the  day 
before.  Nobod}',  however,  seemed  to  care,  and  I 
asked  myself  as  Felipe  and  Geronimo  and  I  sat 
on  a  crumbling  parapet  and  watched  the  bright 
colored  crowd:  "Why  should  I  care?  What  dif- 
ference does  it  make  whether  I  sit  here  in  the  shade 
or  in   the  shade  at  the  ranch?" 

But  at  last  there  began  to  be  a  slow  activity 
— a  going  in  and  a  coming  out  at  the  door  of  the 
priest's  house.  I  watched  people  go  in  empty-handed 
and  come  out  with  a  slip  of  paper  in  one  hand 
and  a  long  yellow  candle  in  the  other.  The  slip 
of  paper  left  me  cold,  but  the  tapering  yellow 
candle  mystically  called.  In  Jalapa  I  had  often 
stood  for  an  hour  staring  at  the  moderate  revolu- 
tions of  the  great  hoop  on  which  the  pendent  wicks 
grow  fatter  and  fatter  as  the  velero  patiently  bathes 
them  in  boiling  tallow,  and  I  had  yearned  to  pos- 
sess one.  Yet,  heretofore,  I  had  denied  myself ;  the 
desire,  It  seemed  to  me,  was  like  that  craving  for 
heirlooms  and  ancestors  on  the  part  of  persons  to 
whom  such  innocent  sensualities  have  been  cruelly 
denied.  To-day,  however,  long  virtue  was  to  have 
a  short,  vicarious  reward,  for  Geronimo's  little  soul 
was  at  the  moment  entirely   in  my  hands,  and   it 

53 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

was  but  proper  that  his  way  to  heaven  should  be 
lighted  by  a  blessed  candle.  So  when  I  came  out 
of  the  priest's  house  I,  too,  had  one  ("  Bang!  went 
saxpence")  as  well  as  the  "certificate  of  confirma- 
tion" ("Bang!"  went  another),  on  which  was 
written  my  godchild's  name,  and  the  names  of  his 
parents  and  my  name.  It  took  hours  for  everyone 
to  be  supplied,  but  they  were  as  nothing  compared 
to  the  hours  we  waited  in  the  church  for  the  bishop. 
Except  in  front  of  the  altar,  the  nave  had  been 
fenced  off  by  a  continuous  line  of  benches  facing 
inward,  and  on  these  the  children  stood  with  their 
sponsors  behind  them.  Like  most  Mexican  chil- 
dren, their  behavior  was  admirable.  They  rarely 
cry,  they  rarely  quarrel,  and  their  capacity  for 
amusing  themselves  with  nothing  is  without  limit. 
Had  I  the  ordering  of  this  strange,  unhappy  world, 
I  think  all  children  would  be  born  Mexican  and 
remain  so  until  they  were  fifteen. 

That  they  in  a  measure  outgrow  their  youthful 
serenity,  however,  seemed  to  be  proved  by  ex- 
hausted relatives  all  about  me  who,  after  the  first 
hour  of  waiting,  began  to  roll  their  eyes  when  they 
met  mine  and  dispatch  a  succession  of  Sister  Annes 
to  peer  through  the  windows  of  the  priest's  sala. 
"  Esta   dormiendo "    (he   is  sleeping),   in   a  hoarse 

54 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

whisper,  was  repeated  so  often  that — my  breakfast 
had  been  a  cup  of  chocolate  and  a  cigarette — the 
hinges  in  my  knees  began  to  work  both  ways,  and 
just  outside  the  church  door  I  recklessly  bought 
and  ate  something  (it  cauterized  me  as  it  went 
down)  wrapped  in  a  tortilla.  When  I  returned, 
the  bishop,  with  three  priests  behind  him,  was 
standing  at  the  top  of  the  altar  steps.  He  was 
wearing  his  miter  and  the  tips  of  his  fingers  lightly 
touched  one  another,  as  a  bishop's  fingers  should, 
on  the  apex  of  his  stomach.  It  was  a  thrilling  mo- 
ment. 

Then,  combining,  in  a  quite  wonderful  fashion, 
extreme  rapidity  with  an  air  of  ecclesiastical  calm, 
he  made  his  confirmatory  way  down  one  side  of  the 
nave,  across  the  end,  and  up  the  other,  preceded  by 
one  priest  and  followed  by  two.  The  first  gathered 
up  the  certificates  (no  laying  on  of  hands  unless 
one  has  paid  one's  twenty-five  centavos)  and  read 
the  name  of  the  child  next  in  line  to  the  bishop, 
who  murmured  the  appropriate  formula,  made  a 
tiny  sign  of  the  cross  on  a  tiny  forehead  with  the 
end  of  a  large,  dirty  thumb,  and  moved  on.  The 
second,  with  a  bit  of  absorbent  cotton  dipped  in 
oil,  swabbed  the  spot  on  which  the  cross  had  been 
signed,  while   the   third,    taking  advantage   of   the 

55 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

general  rapture,  gently  relieved  everyone  of  his 
blessed  candle  (it  had  never  been  lighted)  and  car- 
ried it  away  to  be  sold  again. 

But  by  the  time  the  first  priest  reached  my  family 
party  he  had  grown  tired  and  careless.  Instead  of 
collecting  the  certificates  singly,  he  began  to  take 
them  in  twos  and  threes  with  the  result  that  they 
became  mixed,  and  Geronimo  was  confirmed,  not  as 
Geronimo,  but  as  "  Saturnina,"  which  happened  to 
be  the  name  of  the  little  snubnosed  Totonac  girl 
standing  next  to  him.  When  I  realized  what  had 
happened,  I  protested.  Whereupon  his  grace  and 
I  proceeded  to  have  "  words."  With  exceeding 
bitterness  he  then  reperformed  the  rite,  and  if  the 
eyes  of  the  first  priest  could  have  killed,  I  should 
have  withered  on  my  slender  stalk.  The  priest 
with  the  cotton  also  sought  to  annihilate  me  with 
an  undertoned  remark  to  the  effect  that  my  con- 
duct was  a  "  barbaridad,"  but  the  third  was  not 
only  sinpatico — he  was  farther  away  from  the 
bishop.  As,  with  much  tenderness,  he  disengaged 
Geronimo's  reluctant  fingers  from  the  candle,  he 
severely  looked  at  me  and  winked. 

Then  we  wandered  down  to  the  shabby  little 
plaza,  where  I  bought  Geronimo  some  toys  and 
Felipe  wanted  to  buy  me  a  drink.     But  as  Felipe 

■56 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

was  still  looking  prematurely  old  as  the  result  of 
something  suspiciously  like  delirium  tremens  a  few 
weeks  before,  I  sanctimoniously  declined  and  bade 
them  good-by. 

There  is  no  twilight  in  those  tropics,  and  be- 
fore the  mayordomo  and  I  reached  home,  dark- 
ness gathered  in  the  deep  valley,  crept  behind  us 
up  the  mountainside,  and  all  at  once,  as  they  say 
in  Spanish,  "  it  nighted."  It  was  impossible  to  see 
the  trail  or  even  the  sky,  and  we  lurched  on  and  on 
as  through  an  interminable  world  of  black  velvet. 
Most  of  the  way  I  kept  my  eyes  shut — crouching 
down  on  the  pommel  to  escape  overhanging  vines 
and  the  terrible  outstretched  fingers  of  mala  mujer. 
Twice  we  lost  our  hats,  and  once  my  mule  stuck 
deep  and  fast  in  the  mud  until  we  jumped  into  it 
ourselves  and  pulled  him  out.  On  this  road  after 
dark  it  is  usually  difficult  to  think  of  anything  ex- 
cept that  in  a  little  while  one's  neck  will  be  broken  ; 
but  that  evening,  with  my  eyelids  squeezed  to- 
gether and  my  feet  prudently  hanging  free  of  the 
stirrups,  I  kept  recalling  Felipe's  clumsy,  charming 
devotion  to  his  ethereal  little  son  and  the  satisfac- 
tion he  had  unconsciously  displayed  when  Geronimo 
toddled   out  of  the  church — confirmed. 

Although  Felipe  gets  frightfully  drunk,  neglects 
5  57 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

his  wife  for  other  women,  and  regards  a  machete 
as  the  most  convincing  form  of  argument,  he  has 
excellent  qualities;  but  I  shouldn't  think  of  him  as 
religious  exactly.  And  yet — and  yet — Felipe  and 
his  wife  are  really  married  (it  seems  rather  snobbish 
of  them,  but  it's  a  fact),  and  from  the  knowledge 
that  his  children  have  been  baptized  by  the  priest 
and  confirmed  by  the  bishop,  he  gets  some  sort  of 
an  agreeable  sensation. 


VI 


WHY  people  are  what  they  are  is  always  an 
interesting  subject  on  which  to  exert  one's 
talents,  however  slight,  for  observation  and 
inference.  On  an  isolated  Mexican  farm  one  spends 
many  odd  moments  in  considering  and  attempting 
to  explain  the  traits  of  the  people  who  condescend 
to  work  for  one.  For  most  of  the  problems  of 
one's  daily  life  there  arise  from  those  traits,  and  by 
them,  all  are  complicated.  The  amicable  relations 
between  employer  and  employed  everywhere  is  one 
that  necessitates  on  the  former's  part  considerable 
tact  to  preserve,  but  in  Mexico  both  the  nation's 
history  and  the  people's  temperament  combine  to 
render  the  situation  one  of  unusual  delicacy. 

In  1 5 19  Spain  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
afSxed  themselves  to  Mexico's  throat  and  were  with 
extreme  difficulty  detached  from  it  only  after  three 
hundred  years.  During  most  of  that  time,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  Church  got  possession 
actually  pf  something  more  than  a  third  of  the 
country's    entire    property,     "  real,    personal,    and 

59 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

mixed,"  the  metaphorical  expression,  "  he  could  not 
call  his  soul  his  own,"  was  true  of  the  inhabitants 
in  its  baldest,  its  most  literal  sense.  To  call  one's 
soul  one's  own  in  Mexico  between  the  years  1527 
and  1820  was  to  be  tried  in  secret  by  the  Holy 
Office  of  the  Inquisition  and  then  turned  over  to 
the  secular  authorities — a  formality  that  deceived 
no  one — to  be  either  publicly  strangled  and  then 
burned,  or  burned  without  even  the  preliminary 
solace  of  strangulation.  "  The  principal  crimes  of 
which  the  Holy  Office  took  cognizance,"  we  read, 
"  were  heresy,  sorcery,  withcraft,  polygamy,  seduc- 
tion, imposture,  and  personation  " — a  tolerably  elas- 
tic category.  Without  the  slightest  difficulty  it  could 
be  stretched  to  cover  anyone  "  not  in  sympathy  with 
the  work,"  and  during  the  period  in  which  the  Holy 
Office  was  exercised  it  covered  many. 

It  is  true  the  royal  order  by  which  the  Inquisi- 
tion was  formally  established  in  Mexico  exempted 
Indians  from  its  jurisdiction,  but  when  the  clause 
was  observed — which  it  was  not  in  the  case  of 
Indians  who  displayed  a  capacitj'  for  thought — it 
was  almost  the  only  form  of  oppression  from  which, 
under  the  bigoted  and  avaricious  rule  of  Spain,  they 
were  exempt.  Until  the  advent  of  the  conquerors 
this  part  of  the  new  world  had  been,   for  no  one 

60 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

knows  how  long,  a  slaughterhouse  of  the  gods. 
Spain  and  the  Church  continued  a  carnage  of  their 
own  in  the  name  of  God. 

The  limited  scope  of  these  impressions  permits  of 
scarcely  a  reference  to  Mexico's  history.  I  can 
only  assert  that  almost  every  phase  of  it  is  Im- 
bedded in  layer  upon  layer  of  the  rottenest  type  of 
ecclesiastical  politics  and  that  the  great  mass  of 
the  people  to-day  reflects — in  a  fashion  curiously 
modified  at  unexpected  moments  by  the  national 
awakening — its  generations  of  mental  and  physical 
subjection.  For  whatever,  from  time  to  time,  has 
happened  to  be  the  form  of  government,  the  people 
have  never  enjoyed  any  large  measure  of  freedom. 
Even  now,  with  an  acute,  patriotic,  and  enlightened 
president  at  the  head  of  the  nation,  Mexico — and 
quite  inevitably — is  not  a  republic,  but  a  military 
Diazpotism. 

In  the  name  of  gods  and  of  God,  of  kings,  dic- 
tators, popes,  generals,  emperors,  and  presidents,  the 
people  of  Mexico  have  been  treated,  one  would  be 
inclined  to  say,  like  so  many  head  of  irresponsible 
cattle,  if  cattle,  as  a  rule,  were  not  treated  more  so- 
licitously. And  this  general  tendency  of  the  governor 
toward  the  governed  has  accentuated  certain  traits 
easy  enough  to  isolate  and  describe,  if  they  were  not 

6i 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

complicated  by  the  facts  that:  First,  the  Mexican 
of  to-day  naturally  has  many  characteristics  in  com- 
mon with  the  Spaniard  who  begat  him  and  whom  he 
still  hates;  second,  that  the  nation  is  becoming  more 
and  more  conscious  of  itself  as  a  nation,  and,  third, 
that  in  a  multitude  of  petty  ways  a  kind  of  mediaeval 
tyranny  is  still  often  exercised  by  the  very  persons 
who,  as  officials  of  a  theoretically  excellent  republic, 
ought  to  stand  for  all  that  is  liberal  and  just. 

Now,  if  the  attitude  of  a  Mexican  peon  were 
always  consistently  that  of  the  oppressed  and  pa- 
tient creature  who  looks  upon  his  patron  as  om- 
nipotent and  omniscient,  or  if  it  were  always  that 
of  the  highfalutin  Spaniard  whom  at  times  he  so 
much  resembles — or,  if  it  were  always  that  of 
Young  Mexico,  conscious  of  at  least  his  theoretical 
independence  and  in  theory  "  as  good  as  anybody," 
there  would  be  little  difficulty  in  getting  along  with 
him ;  one  would  know  at  any  given  moment  how  to 
treat  him.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  a  rather 
intricate  combination  of  all  three,  and  one  can 
rarely  predict  which  he  will  choose  to  exhibit.  Add 
to  this  an  incredible  depth  of  superstition  that  is 
both  innate  and  very  carefully  encouraged  by  the 
Church,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  an  em- 
ployer in  certain  parts  of  Mexico  is  compelled  to 

62 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

treat  his  laborers  much  as  one  has  to  treat  nervous 
and  unreasonable  children. 

Although  they  are  hired  and  receive  wages  on 
various  terms  of  agreement,  the  normal  relation  be- 
tween the  proprietor  of,  say,  a  cafe  finca  of  mod- 
erate size  and  the  people  who  work  for  him,  sug- 
gests in  many  respects  the  relation  that  existed 
before  the  Civil  War  between  our  Southerners  of 
the  better  type  and  their  slaves.  Some  of  the  people 
have  small  farms  of  their  own  in  the  neigborhood, 
but  when  they  go  to  work  for  any  length  of  time 
they  usually  close  their  houses  and  live  on  the  ranch 
of  their  employer  in  one-roomed  huts  built  by  the 
patron  at  a  cost — if  they  are  made  of  bamboo — 
of  from  six  to  ten  dollars  an  edifice.  Closing  their 
houses  for  the  coffee-picking  season  consists  of 
gathering  up  four  or  five  primitive  pottery  cooking 
utensils,  several  babies,  a  pair  of  thin  and  faded 
sarapes,  calling  to  the  dogs  and  strolling  out  of  the 
door.  Under  ordinary  amicable  circumstances  they 
are  disposed  to  look  up  to  the  patron,  to  be  flat- 
tered by  his  notice  of  them — to  regard  him,  in  fact, 
as  of  different  and  finer  clay  than  themselves.  And 
when  this  lowly  and  dependent  mood  is  upon  them 
there  is  not  only  nothing  the  senor  cannot,  in  their 
opinion,  accomplish  if  he   desires  to — there  are  no 

63 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

demands  upon  his  time,  his  money,  his  implements, 
and  his  sympathies  that  they  hesitate  to  make.    The 
proprietor  of  a  far-away   ranch  acquires  a  certain 
proficiency  in  the  performance  of  almost  every  kindly 
office,  from  obstetrics  to  closing  the  eyes  of  the  dead. 
One  Agapito,  whose  baby  died  on  our  place,  in- 
formed us — after  we  had  sufficiently  condoled  and 
he   had    cheerfully    assured  us   that   the   baby   was 
"  better  off  with  God  " — that   it  would   give  him 
and  his  wife  great  pleasure  to  pay  us  the  compli- 
ment of  having  the  wake  in  our  sala!     There,  of 
course,  was  a  delicate  situation  at  once.     Agapito 
yearned   for  the  prestige  that  would   be  his  if  we 
permitted   him   to   suspend  his   dead  baby — dressed 
in  mosquito  netting  and   orange  blossoms — against 
the  sala  wall  and   leave  it  there  to  the  edification 
of  the  countryside  for  a  day  and  a  night.     To  re- 
fuse  was,    without   doubt,   to   offend   him;    but    to 
consent  was  to  establish  a  somewhat  ghastly  prece- 
dent impossible  in  subsequent  cases  of  affliction  to 
ignore.     As  my  brother  declared,  when  we  with- 
drew to  discuss  the  matter,  one  had  to  choose  be- 
tween hurting  Agapito's  feelings   and   turning  the 
sala  into  a  perpetual  morgue.     Agapito  was  in  sev- 
eral respects  an  efficient  and  valuable  person.     He 
could    even    persuade    the   machine    for    dispulping 

64 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

coffee-berries  to  work  smoothly  when — as  they  ex- 
press it — "  it  does  not  wish  to."  But,  nevertheless, 
with  much  regret  we  decided  to  hurt  Agapito's 
feelings.  Like  children  they  do  not  shrink  from 
making  naively  preposterous  demands  upon  one,  and 
like  children  their  sense  of  obligation  is  almost  en- 
tirely lacking.  They  are  given  to  bringing  one 
presents  of  oranges  and  bananas,  or  inedible  blood 
puddings  and  cakes  when  they  kill  a  pig  or  have 
a  party,  but  they  are  rarely  incited  to  display  ap- 
preciation of  kindness — even  when  it  would  be  easy 
for  them  to  do  so — in  a  way  that  counts. 

One  afternoon,  during  the  busiest  season  of  the 
year  on  a  coffee  ranch,  all  the  coffee-pickers — men, 
women,  and  children — with  the  exception  of  one 
family,  suddenly  struck.  When  asked  what  the 
trouble  was,  the  spokesman  in  a  florid  and  pompous 
address  declared  that  they  were  "  all  brothers  and 
must  pick  together  or  not  at  all."  It  came  out  dur- 
ing the  interview  that  the  father  of  the  family 
who  had  not  struck  had  received  permission  for  him- 
self, his  wife,  and  six  small  children  to  pick  in  a 
block  of  coffee  by  themselves,  and  to  this  the  others 
had  been  induced  to  object.  Why  they  objected 
they  could  not  say,  because  they  did  not  know.  It 
was   explained    to  them   that   the  man   had  wished 

65 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

his  family  to  work  apart  for  the  sole  and  sensible 
reason  that,  first,  he  and  his  wife  could  take  bet- 
ter care  of  the  children  when  they  were  not  scat- 
tered among  the  crowd,  and,  secondly,  that  as  the 
trees  of  the  particular  block  he  had  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  pick  in  were  younger  and  smaller  than 
the  others,  the  children  had  less  difficulty  in  reach- 
ing the  branches.  He  not  only  derived  no  financial 
advantage  from  the  change,  he  was  voluntarily 
making  some  sacrifice  by  going  to  pick  where  the 
coffee,  owing  to  the  youth  of  the  trees,  was  less 
abundant. 

"  Don't  you  see  that  this  is  the  truth  and  all 
there  is  to  it?"   the  strikers  were  asked. 

"  Yes." 

"  And  now  that  it  has  been  explained,  won't  you 
go  back  to  work?  " 

"  No." 

"But  why  not?" 

"  Because." 

"  Because  what?  " 

"  Because  we  must  all  pick  together." 

A  strike  for  higher  wages  or  shorter  hours  or 
more  and  better  food  is  usual  and  always  compre- 
hensible anywhere,  but  one  has  to  go  to  Mexico, 
I  imagine,  to  experience  a  strike  that  involves  neither 

66 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

a  question  of  material  advantage  nor  of  abstract 
principle.  It  was  recalled  to  them  that  the  fact  of 
their  being  "  all  brothers  "  did  not  operate  against 
their  eloping  with  one  another's  wives  and  slash- 
ing one  another  with  machetes  in  the  mazy  dance 
whenever  they  felt  so  inclined — a  reflection  that 
produced  much  merriment,  especially  among  the 
ladies.  But  upon  the  point  at  issue  it  had  no  ef- 
fect whatever,  and  irritating  as  it  was  to  be  forced 
into  submitting  to  this  sort  of  thing,  before  work 
could  be  resumed  the  family  of  eight  had  to  be 
sent  for  and  told  to  pick  w'ith  the  others.  All  these 
people  w^ere  indebted  to  their  employer  for  loans, 
for  medicines — for  assistance  of  various  kinds  too 
numerous  to  mention  or  to  remember,  and,  in  their 
way,  they  liked  him  and  liked  the  ranch.  I  can 
account  for  such  inconsiderate  imbecility  only  by 
supposing  that  after  generations  of  oppression  the 
desire  among  an  ignorant  and  emotional  people  to 
assert  their  independence  in  small  matters  becomes 
irresistible  from  time  to  time,  even  when  they  can- 
not discover  that  their  rights  have  been  in  any  way 
infringed  upon. 

However,  their  rights  are  constantly  infringed 
upon  in  the  most  obvious  and  brazen  manner,  and 
knowledge  of  this  undoubtedly  contributes  to  their 

67 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

uncomfortable  habit  of  vibrating  between  an  at- 
titude of  doglike  trust  and  one  of  the  most  ex- 
aggerated suspicion.  Last  year,  for  example,  a 
stone  bridge  was  being  built  in  a  small  town  some 
six  or  eight  miles  away  from  our  ranch.  As  the 
heavy  summer  rains  were  but  a  few  months  off, 
it  was  desirable  that  the  bridge  should  be  com- 
pleted. Labor,  however,  was  exceedingly  scarce, 
and  for  a  long  time  the  work  made  no  visible 
progress.  At  first  the  authorities  resorted  to  the 
usual  plan  of  making  arrests  for  drunkenness  and 
obliging  the  victims  to  haul  stones  and  mortar,  but 
as  this  immediately  resulted  in  the  exercise  of  un- 
usual self-restraint  on  the  part  of  the  populace,  the 
jefe  politico  evolved  the  quaint  conceit  of  detain- 
ing every  able-bodied  man  who  appeared  in  town 
without  trousers!  The  Indians  in  that  part  of  the 
country^  and  many  of  the  people  who  are  not  pure 
Indian,  wear,  instead  of  the  skin-tight  Mexican 
trousers,  a  pair  of  long,  loose  white  cotton  drawers 
resembling  in  cut  and  fit  the  lower  part  of  a  suit 
of  pajamas.  They  are  not  only  a  perfectly  respect- 
able garment,  they  are  vastly  more  practical  and 
comfortable  than  the  pantalones,  inasmuch  as  they 
can  be  rolled  above  the  knee  and,  in  a  land  of  mud 
and  streams,  kept  clean  and  dry.    But  until  the  jefe 

68 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

had  acquired  a  force  sufficient  to  complete  the 
bridge,  he  arrested  everjbody  who  wore  them.  A 
law  had  been  passed,  he  said,  declaring  them  to  be 
indecent.  Just  when  the  law  had  been  passed  and 
by  whom  he  did  not  trouble  to  explain.  Among 
the  small  rancheros  of  the  neighborhood  who  did 
not  own  a  pair  of  trousers,  the  edict  caused  not  only 
inconvenience  but  now  and  then  positive  hardship. 
Many  of  them  who  had  not  heard  of  it  and  in- 
nocently attended  church  or  market  were  sent  to 
bridge-building  for  indefinite  periods  when  they 
ought  to  have  been  at  home  harvesting  their  corn. 
Their  crops  were  either  spoiled  or  stolen.  The  In- 
dians on  our  place  did  not  dare  venture  into  town 
for  supplies  until  we  bought  a  pair  of  trousers  for 
lending  purposes.  "Trinidad  (or  Lucio,  or  Jesus) 
Is  going  to  town  and  begs  that  you  will  do  him  the 
favor  of  lending  him  the  pants,"  was  an  almost 
daily  request  for  weeks.^ 

'  Since   I  wrote  the  above,  the  following  item  of  newi  appeared  in 
the  Mexican  Herald  oi  February  1 1,  1908: 

Forced  to  Wear  Trousers 

Mountaineers   Around   Guanajuato 

Prefer  to   Pay   Fines. 

Special  Dispatch  to  the  Herald. 

Guanajuato,  February  loth. — The  local  treasurj-  will  soon  be  full 
to  overflowing    from    the   numerous   fines   collected    from   sons   of  the 

69 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

I  remember  one  jefe  politico  to  whom  it  occurred 
that  he  might  start  a  butcher  shop  and  ruin  the 
business  of  the  only  other  butcher  shop  in  town, 
which  was  kept  by  a  man  he  happened  to  dislike. 
When  he  had  completed  his  arrangements  for  the 
sale  of  meat,  he  caused  a  rumor  to  circulate  among 
the  lower  classes  to  the  effect  that  life  would  be 
a  gladder,  sweeter  thing  for  all  concerned  if  the 
meat  he  was  now  prepared  to  dispense  should  find 
a  market  both  ready  and  sustained.  To  the  Ameri- 
can and  English  rancheros  of  the  neighborhod  he 
had  letters  written  by  various  friends  of  his  who 
happened  to  know  them ;  courteous  not  to  say 
punctilious  letters  that,  however,  contained  some- 
where between  the  lines  an  ominous  rumble.  "  I 
thought  it  might  interest  you  to  learn  that  H — , 
the  jefe,  has  opened  a  butcher  shop  and  would  con- 
sider it  an  honor  if  you  were  to  favor  him  with  your 
patronage,  instead  of  bestowing  it  upon  his  com- 
petitor," the  letters  ran  in  part.  Though  some- 
what  more   rhetorical,    it   all    sounded    to   the  un- 

mountains  who  daily  endeavor  to  enter  this  ancient  town  clad  in  cotton 
drawers.  The  law  is  strict  in  this  particular,  and  the  police  in  the 
suburbs  have  strict  orders  to  see  that  no  peon  enters  the  town  without 
a  pair  of  factory-made  trousers. 

[It  would  be  interesting  to  know  who,  in  Guanajuato,  owns  the 
largest  interest  in  the  local  trousers  factory.] 

70 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

attuned  ear  as  innocent  as  anj^  of  the  numerous 
advertisements  one  receives  by  post  in  the  course 
of  a  week  at  home.  But  it  wasn't.  In  a  "  repub- 
lic," where  the  governors  of  the  various  states 
must  be  without  question  the  political  friends  of 
the  president,  and  the  jefes  are  usually,  with  no 
more  question,  the  political  friends  of  the  governors, 
the  suggestion  that  a  jefe  would  not  object  to  one's 
purchasing  beefsteaks  from  him  is  not  lightly  to  be 
ignored.  The  local  jefe  can,  in  a  hundred  subtle 
ways,  make  one's  residence  in  Mexico  extremely  dif- 
ficult and  disagreeable.  Every  foreigner  who  received 
one  of  the  inspired  epistles  changed  his  butcher  the 
next  day.  Another  jefe  of  my  acquaintance — a 
rather  charming  man — decided  to  pave  a  certain 
country  road  chiefly  because  it  went  through  some 
land  owned  by  his  brother.  As  most  of  the  able- 
bodied  convicts  of  that  district  were  engaged  in 
paving  a  much  more  important  highway  and  he 
could  not  very  well  draw  upon  their  forces,  he 
magnificently  sent  out  a  messenger  who  floundered 
through  the  mud  from  ranch  to  ranch,  announcing 
to  the  countryside  that  henceforth  every  man  would 
have  to  labor,  without  compensation,  one  day  in 
eight  upon  the  road.  Now,  to  most  of  the  people 
who  received  the  message,  this  particular  road  was 

71 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  no  importance;  they  rarely  used  it  and  they 
owned  no  land  through  which  it  ran.  And  yet — 
whether  from  the  habit  of  submitting  to  tyranny, 
or  from  guilty  consciences,  I  don't  know — many 
responded  with  their  time  and  their  toil.  When 
asked,  as  we  frequently  were,  for  advice  on  the 
subject,  we  refrained  from  giving  any. 

The  habit  of  suspicion  and  the  impulse  to  make, 
for  no  very  definite  reason,  little  displaj^s  of  per- 
sonal independence  would  tax  one's  patience  and 
amiability  to  the  utmost  if  one  did  not  keep  on 
hand  a  reserve  fund  of  these  qualities  with  which  to 
fortify  oneself  against  frequent  exhibitions  of  Mexi- 
can honor.  In  referring  to  this  somewhat  rococo 
subject,  it  is  perhaps  but  fair  for  me  to  admit  that 
even  so  comparatively  simple  a  matter  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  sense  of  honor  presents  certain  difficulties  to 
my  understanding.  Explain  and  expound  as  many 
intelligent  gentlemen  have  to  me,  for  instance,  I 
have  never  been  able  to  grasp  why  it  is  so  much 
more  dishonorable  to  evade  one's  gambling  debts 
than  it  is  to  evade  one's  laundress.  Therefore  I 
do  not  feel  competent  to  throw  a  great  light  upon 
the  kind  of  honor  that  obtains  in  Mexico.  I  can 
only  observe  that,  like  politeness,  smallpox,  and  fine 
weather,  it  is  very  prevalent,  and  record  an  example 

72 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

or  two  of  the  many  that  arise  in  iny  memory,  by 
way  of  illustrating  one  of  the  obstacles  in  the  em- 
ployer's path. 

A  few  winters  ago  we  hired  a  youth  to  bring 
our  letters  and  fresh  meat  every  day  from  the 
town  to  the  ranch.  He  performed  this  monotonous 
service  with  commendable  regularity,  and  with  a 
regularity  not  so  commendable  always  cut  off  at 
least  a  quarter  of  the  meat  after  leaving  the  butcher 
shop  and  gave  it  to  his  mother  who  lived  In  town. 
Futhermore,  when  the  workmen  on  the  place  in- 
trusted him  with  letters  to  post  on  his  return,  he 
posted  them  if  they  were  stamped,  but  scattered 
them  in  fragments  if  they  were  not,  and  pocketed 
the  money.  We  knew  he  did  both  these  things  be- 
cause we  found  and  identified  some  of  the  epistolary 
fragments,  and  his  mother  had  the  monumental 
brass  to  complain  to  the  butcher  when  the  meat  was 
tough !  But  even  so,  he  was  a  convenience — none 
of  the  laborers  could  be  regularly  spared  at  the 
time — and  we  made  no  moan.  One  day,  however, 
it  was  impossible  to  ignore  the  matter;  he  arrived 
with  a  bit  of  beefsteak  about  as  large  as  a  mutton 
chop  and  had  the  effrontery,  as  we  thought,  to  de- 
liver it  without  a  word  of  explanation.  So,  as  the 
imposition  had  been  going  on  for  at  least  six  weeks, 

6  73 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

he  was  as  kindly  as  possible,  most  unfortunately, 
accused.  Then  followed  an  exhibition  of  outraged 
innocence  such  as  I  have  never  before  seen.  He 
turned  a  kind  of  Nile  green;  he  clenched  his  fist 
and  beat  upon  his  chest.  He  made  an  impassioned 
address  in  which  he  declared  that,  although  his 
family  was  poor  and  needed  the  twenty-five  centavos 
a  day  we  paid  him,  he  could  not  continue  to  work 
for  anyone  who  had  sought  to  cast  a  reflection  upon 
his  spotless  honor;  and  he  ended  by  bursting  into 
tears  and  sobbing  for  ten  minutes  with  his  head 
on  a  bag  of  coffee. 

The  tragic,  humorous,  and  altogether  grotesque 
part  of  the  affair  was  that  on  this  particular  day 
for  the  first  time,  no  doubt,  since  we  had  employed 
him,  he  hadn't  stolen  the  meat!  We  learned  from 
the  butcher  a  few  hours  afterwards  that  there  had 
been  scarcely  any  beefsteak  in  the  shop  when  the 
boy  had  called,  but  that  he  had  sent  a  few  ounces, 
thinking  it  was  better  than  nothing  at  all.  We 
lost  our  messenger;  his  mother  would  not  allow 
him  to  work  for  persons  who  doubted  his  honesty. 

A  friend  of  mine  had  in  his  employ  an  old  man 
— an  ex-bullfighter — who  took  care  of  the  horses 
and  accompanied  the  various  members  of  the  family 
when  they  went  for  a  ride.     He  was  given  to  gam- 

74 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

bling,  and  on  one  occasion  when  he  had  lost  all  his 
money  but  could  not  bring  himself  to  leave  the 
game,  he  gambled  away  a  saddle  and  bridle  of  his 
employer.  Shortly  afterwards  my  friend  recognized 
them  in  the  window  of  a  harness  shop  and  bought 
them  back,  without,  however,  mentioning  the  fact 
to  old  Preciliano,  who,  when  casually  asked  where 
they  were,  replied  quite  as  casually  that  at  the  pub- 
lic stable  where  the  horses  were  kept  they  had 
become  mixed  with  some  other  equipment  and  taken 
away  by  mistake.  He  explained  that  he  knew  the 
distant  ranchero  who  had  inadvertently  done  this 
and  that  steps  had  been  taken  to  have  them  re- 
turned. For  several  weeks  my  friend  amused  him- 
self by  asking  for — and  getting — minute  details  of 
the  saddle's  whereabouts  and  the  probable  date  of 
its  arrival,  and  then  one  day  he  abruptly  accused 
Preciliano  of  having  lost  it  in  a  game  of  cards. 

This  was  followed  by  almost  exactly  a  repetition 
of  the  performance  we  had  been  given  by  the  mcat- 
and-letter  boy.  Preciliano  was  not  only  astonished 
that  the  senor  could  for  a  moment  imagine  such  a 
thing,  he  was  hurt — wounded — cruelly  smitten  In 
his  old  age  by  the  hand  he  had  never  seen  raised 
except  in  kindness.  All  was  lost  save  honor.  That, 
thank  God,  he  could  still  retain — but  not  there ;  not 

75 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

under  that  roof.  He  could  not  remain  covered  with 
shame  in  the  shadow  of  so  hideous  a  suspicion. 
Honor  demanded  that  he  should  "  separate  "  him- 
self at  once — honor  dem.anded  all  sorts  of  things 
in  this  vein  until  my  friend,  who  said  he  was  posi- 
tively beginning  to  believe  Preciliano  very  much  as 
Preciliano  believed  himself,  suddenly  stooped  down 
and  pulled  the  saddle  and  bridle  from  under  the 
table.     Collapse.     Tears.     Forgiveness.     Tableau. 

Preciliano  subsequently  left  this  family — gave  up 
an  agreeable  and  lucrative  position — because  the 
wife  of  the  employer  thoughtfully  suggested  that, 
on  account  of  his  advancing  years,  it  would  be 
wiser  of  him  not  to  exercise  a  certain  imperfectly 
broken  horse.  He  was  "  covered  with  shame  "  and 
sorrowfully  bade  them  farewell. 


VII 


HERE  is  a  letter  from  a  cofFee  plantation: 
When  I  got  back  in  October,  they  re- 
ceived me  with  formalities — gave  me  a  kind 
of  Roman  triumph.  If  it  hadn't  been  so  pathetic  I 
should  have  laughed;  if  it  hadn't  been  so  funny  I 
should  have  cried.  For  I  had  been  fourteen  hours 
on  a  slow-climbing  mule,  and  you  know — or  rather 
you  don't  know — how  the  last  interminable  two 
hours  of  that  kind  of  riding  unstrings  one.  Being 
Mexican,  everything  about  the  Roman  triumph 
went  wrong  and  fell  perfectly  flat.  In  the  first 
place  they  expected  me  a  day  earlier,  and  when  I 
didn't  arrive  they  decided — Heaven  knows  why — 
that  I  wouldn't  come  the  next  day,  but  the  day 
after.  In  the  meanwhile  I  appeared  late  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  day  between.  They  had  built  in 
front  of  the  piazza  a  wobbly  arch  of  great  glossy 
leaves  and  red  flowers,  and  from  post  to  post  had 
hung  chains  of  red,  white,  and  green  tissue  paper. 
But  the  arch,  of  course,  had  blown  down  in  the 
night   and  most   of    the   paper    garlands   had   been 

77 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

rained  on  and  were  hanging  limply  to  the  posts. 
All  this,  they  assured  me,  would  have  been  repaired 
had  I  arrived  a  day  later,  and  I  marveled  at  my 
self-control  as  I  enthusiastically  admired  the  beauty 
of  a  welcoming  arch  lying  prostrate  in  the  mud. 

It  had  been  the  pleasant  intention  of  ever}'one  to 
assemble  and  welcome  me  home,  and  when  at  the 
entrance  to  the  ranch  the  Indian  who  lives  there 
gave  a  prolonged,  falsetto  crj^  (un  grito) — the  signal 
agreed  on — and  I  rode  up  the  slope  to  the  clanging 
of  the  bell  we  ring  to  call  in  the  pickers,  and  the 
detonations  of  those  terrible  Mexican  rockets  that 
give  no  light  but  rend  the  sky  apart,  I  had  a  feel- 
ing as  of  a  concourse  awaiting  me.  The  concourse, 
however,  had  given  me  up  until  the  next  day,  and 
when  I  got  off  my  mule  I  found  that  the  entire 
festivities  were  being  conducted  by  Manuel  the 
house-boy,  Rosalia  the  cook,  and  Trinidad  the 
mayordomo.  Trinidad  shot  off  all  six  cartridges 
in  his  revolver  and  then  shook  hands  with  me. 
Rosalia  was  attached  to  the  bell  rope — Manuel  was 
manipulating  the  rockets.  At  that  moment  I  knew 
exactly  how  the  hero  feels  when  the  peasantry  (no 
doubt  such  plays  are  now  extinct)  exclaims:  "The 
young  squire  comes  of  age  to-day.  Hurray,  hurray, 
hurray!      There   will   be    great    doings  up    at   the 

78 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

hall.  Hurray,  hurray,  hurray!"  It  was  all  so 
well  meant  that  when  I  went  into  my  bedroom  I 
could  not  bring  myself  to  scold  at  what  I  found 
there.  On  the  clean,  brown  cedar  walls  they  had 
pasted  pictures — advertisements  of  sewing  machines 
and  breakfast  foods  and  automobiles,  cut  from  the 
back  pages  of  magazines  and  slapped  on  anj-where. 
They  see  but  few  pictures,  and  ours,  although  rather 
meaningless  to  them,  are  fascinating.  A  picture  is 
a  picture,  and  my  walls  were  covered  with  them ; 
but  I  pretended  to  be  greatly  pleased.  Since  then 
I  have  been  quietly  soaking  them  off  at  the  tactful 
rate  of  about  two  a  week. 

Trinidad,  the  new  mayordomo,  seems  to  have 
done  well  in  my  absence.  He  planted  thirty-five 
thousand  new  coffee  trees  with  an  intelligence  posi- 
tively human.  Casimiro,  his  predecessor,  and  I 
parted  last  year — not  in  anger,  only  in  sorrow. 
Casimiro  had  been  a  highwayman — a  bandit.  His 
police  record,  they  say,  makes  creepy  reading  on 
dark  and  windy  nights.  That,  however,  I  never 
took  in  consideration.  It  was  only  when  he  began 
to  gamble  and  to  make  good  his  losses  by  selling 
me  my  own  corn  and  pocketing  the  money  that 
we  bade  each  other  good-by.  There  was  no  scene. 
When  I  told  him  such  things  could  not  go  on,  he 

79 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

gravely  agreed  with  me  that  they  couldn't,  and 
without  resentment  departed  the  next  morning. 
They  are  strange  people.  When  they  do  lose  con- 
trol of  themselves  they  go  to  any  lengths;  there 
is  likely  to  be  a  scene  more  than  worth  the  price 
of  admission.  Somebody  usually  gets  killed.  But 
nothing  short  of  this  would  seem  to  be,  as  a  rule, 
worth  while,  and  on  the  surface  their  manner  is 
one  of  indifference — detachment.  Trinidad,  who 
took  Casimiro's  place,  rose,  so  to  speak,  from  the 
ranks.  He  was  an  arriero  for  seven  years  and 
then  drifted  here  as  a  day  laborer.  But  he  under- 
stands coffee,  and  the  experiment  of  suddenly  plac- 
ing him  over  all  the  others  has  so  far  been  a 
success. 

What  a  watchful  eye  the  authorities  keep  on  them 
even  in  far-away  places  like  this!  The  instant 
Trinidad  ceased  to  be  a  common  laborer  on  what- 
ever he  could  earn  a  day  by  picking  coffee,  hauling 
firewood,  cleaning  the  trees,  and  received  a  salary 
of  thirty-five  pesos  a  month,  his  taxes  were  raised. 
They  all  pay  a  monthly  tax  (the  "  contribucion  " 
it  is  called)  of  a  few  centavos,  although  what  most 
of  them,  owning  absolutely  nothing,  are  taxed  for, 
it  would  be  hard  to  say,  unless  it  be  for  breathing 
the  air  of  heaven — for  being  alive  at  all.     He  tried 

80 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

to  keep  secret  the  fact  of  his  advancement,  but  It 
became  known  of  course,  and  his  tax,  to  his  great 
disgust,  was  raised  fifteen  or  twenty  cents. 

Last  week  we  had  our  first  picking  of  the  year 
and,  weather  permitting  (which  it  won't  be),  we 
shall  pick  with  more  or  less  continuity  for  the  next 
four  months.  Coffee  is  different  from  other  crops 
("not  like  other  girls")  and  often  inclines  me  to 
believe  it  has  acquired  some  of  its  characteristics 
from  prolonged  and  intimate  contact  with  the  hands 
that  pick  it.  For  quite  in  the  Mexican  manner  it 
cannot  bring  itself  to  do  anything  so  definite  and 
thorough  as  to  ripen — like  wheat  or  corn  or  potatoes 
— all  at  once.  A  few  berries  turn  red  on  every 
tree  and  have  to  be  removed  before  they  fall  off. 
By  the  time  this  has  been  done  from  one  end  of  the 
place  to  the  other,  more  have  ripened  and  reddened 
and  the  pickers  begin  again.  "  Poco  a  poco — not 
to-day  shall  we  be  ready  for  you,  but  to-morrow, 
or  perhaps  next  week.  To  do  anything  so  final — . 
in  fact,  to  be  ready  on  any  specific  date  is  not 
the  custom  of  the  country,"  the  trees  seem  to  say. 
However,  it  is  just  as  well.  Nature  apparently 
knew  what  she  was  doing.  To  pick  the  berries 
properly  requires  skill  and  time,  and  if  they  all 
ripened  at  once  one  could  not  take  care  of  them. 

8i 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Beyond  the  fact  that  you  "  don't  take  sugar, 
thank  you,"  and  like  to  have  the  cream  poured  in 
first,  do  you  know  anything  about  coffee?  Did 
you  know  that  the  pretty,  fussy  trees  (they  are 
really  more  like  large  shrubs)  won't  grow  in  the 
sun  and  w^on't  grow  in  the  shade,  but  have  to  be 
given  companionship  in  the  form  of  other  trees  that, 
high  above  them,  permit  just  enough  and  not  too 
much  sunlight  to  filter  mildly  in?  And  that  unless 
you  twist  ofi  the  berries  in  a  persuasive,  almost 
gentle  fashion,  you  so  hurt  their  feelings  that  in 
the  spring  they  may  refuse  to  flower?  And  that 
the  branches  are  so  brittle,  they  have  a  way  of 
cracking  off  from  the  weight  of  their  own  crop? 
And  that  wherever  there  is  coffee  there  is  also  a 
tough,  graceful  little  vine  about  as  thick  as  a  tele- 
graph wire  which,  if  left  uncut,  winds  itself  around 
and  around  a  tree,  finally  strangling  it  to  death  as 
a  snake  strangles  a  rabbit? 

When  I  see  the  brown  hands  of  the  pickers  flut- 
tering like  nimble  birds  among  the  branches,  and 
think  of  the  eight  patient  processes  to  which  the 
little  berries  must  be  subjected  before  they  can  be- 
come a  cup  of  drinkable  coffee,  I  often  wonder  how 
and  by  whom  their  secret  was  wrested  from  them. 
Was  it  an  accident  like  the  original  whitening  of 

82 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

sugar,  when^so  we  used  to  be  told — a  chicken  with 
clay  on  its  feet  ran  over  a  mound  of  crude,  brown 
crystals?  Or  did  a  dejected  Arabian,  having  heard 
all  his  life  that  (like  the  tomato  of  our  grand- 
mothers') it  was  a  deadly  thing,  attempt  by  drink- 
ing it  to  assuage  forever  a  hopeless  passion  for  some 
bulbul  of  the  desert,  and  then  find  himself  not  dead, 
but  waking?  A  careless  woman  drops  a  bottle  of 
bluing  into  a  vat  of  wood  pulp  and  lo!  for  the 
first  time  we  have  colored  writing  paper.  But  no 
one  ever  inadvertently  picked,  dispulped,  fermented, 
washed,  dried,  hulled,  roasted,  ground,  and  boiled 
cofifee,  and  unless  most  of  these  things  are  done  to 
it,  it  is  of  no  possible  use. 

After  the  coffee  is  picked  it  is  brought  home  in 
sacks,  measured,  and  run  through  the  dispulper,  a 
machine  that  removes  the  tough  red,  outer  skin. 
Every  berry  (except  the  pea  berry — a  freak)  is 
composed  of  two  beans,  and  these  are  covered  with 
a  sweet,  slimy  substance  known  as  the  "  honey," 
which  has  to  ferment  and  rot  before  the  beans  may 
be  washed.  Washing  simply  removes  the  honey 
and  those  pieces  of  the  outer  skin  that  have  escaped 
the  teeth  of  the  machine  and  flowed  from  the  front 
end  where  they  weren't  wanted.  Four  or  five 
changes  of   water   are   made   in    the  course  of  the 

83 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

operation,  and  toward  the  last,  when  the  rotted 
honey  has  been  washed  away,  leaving  the  beans 
hard  and  clean  in  their  coverings  of  parchment,  one 
of  the  men  takes  off  his  trousers,  rolls  up  his 
drawers,  and  knee  deep  in  the  heavy  mixture  of 
coffee  and  water  drags  his  feet  as  rapidly  as  he  can 
around  the  cement  washing  tank  until  the  whole 
mass  is  in  motion  with  a  swirling  eddy  in  the  cen- 
ter. Into  the  eddy  gravitate  all  the  impurities — 
the  foreign  substances — the  dead  leaves  and  twigs 
and  unwelcome  hulls,  and  when  they  all  seem  to 
be  there,  the  man  deftly  scoops  them  up  with  his 
hands  and  tosses  them  over  the  side.  Then,  if  it 
be  a  fine  hot  day,  the  soggy  mess  is  shoveled  on 
the  asoleadero  (literally,  the  sunning  place),  an 
immense  sloping  stone  platform  covered  with  smooth 
cement,  and  there  it  is  spread  out  to  dry  while  men 
in  their  bare  feet  constantly  turn  it  over  with 
wooden  hoes  in  order  that  the  beans  may  receive  the 
sun  equally  on  all  sides. 

It  sounds  simple,  and  if  one  numbered  among 
one's  employees  a  Joshua  who  could  command  the 
sun  to  stand  still  when  one  wished  it  to,  it  doubt- 
less would  be.  But  no  matter  how  much  coiifee 
there  may  be  spread  out  on  the  asoleadero,  the  sun 
not  only  loses  its  force  at  a  certain  hour  and  then 

84 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

inconsiderately  sets,  it  sometimes  refuses  for  weeks 
at  a  time  to  show  itself  at  all.  During  these  dreary- 
eternities  the  half-dried  coffee  is  stowed  away  in 
sacks  or,  when  it  is  too  wet  to  dispose  of  in  this 
manner  without  danger  of  molding,  it  is  heaped  up 
in  ridges  on  the  asoleadero  and  covered.  When  it 
rains,  work  of  all  kinds  in  connection  with  the 
coffee  necessarily  ceases.  The  dryers  cannot  dry 
and  the  pickers  cannot  pick.  Even  when  it  is  not 
actually  raining  the  pickers  won't  go  out  if  the 
trees  are  still  wet.  For  the  water  from  the  shaken 
branches  chills  and  stiffens  their  bloodless  hands 
and  soaks  through  their  cotton  clothes  to  the  skin. 
If  one's  plantation  and  one's  annual  crop  are  large 
enough  to  justify  the  expense,  one  may  defy  the 
sun  by  investing  in  what  is  known  as  a  secadero — 
a  machine  for  drying  coffee  by  artificial  heat.  But 
I  haven't  arrived  at  one  of  these  two-thousand-dollar 
sun-scorners — ^yet. 

That  is  as  far  as  I  go  with  my  coffee — I  pick 
it,  dispulp  it,' wash  it,  dry  it,  and  sell  it.  But  while 
the  first  four  of  these  performances  sometimes  bid 
fair  to  worry  me  into  my  grave  before  my  prime, 
and  the  fourth  at  least  is  of  vital  importance,  as 
the  flavor  of  coffee  may  certainly  be  marred,  if 
not  made,  in  the  drying,  they  are  but  the  prelude 

85 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

to  what  is  eventually  done  to  it  before  you  criti- 
cally sip  it  and  declare  it  to  be  good  or  bad.  Wom- 
en and  children  pick  it  over  by  hand,  separating  it 
into  different  classes;  it  is  then  run  through  one 
machine  that  divests  it  of  its  parchment  covering; 
another,  with  the  uncanny  precision  of  mindless 
things,  gropes  for  beans  that  happen  to  be  of  exactly 
the  same  shape,  wonderfully  finds  them,  and  drops 
them  into  their  respective  places;  while  at  the  same 
time  it  is  throwing  out  every  bean  that  either  nature 
or  the  dispulping  machine  has  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree mutilated.  The  sensitiveness  and  apperception 
of  this  iron  and  wooden  box  far  exceed  my  own. 
Often  I  am  unable  to  see  the  difference  between 
the  b^aos  it  has  chosen  to  disgorge  into  one  sack 
and  the  beans  it  has  relegated  to  another — to  feel 
the  justice  of  its  irrevocable  decisions.  But  they 
are  always  just,  and  every  bean  it  drops  into  the 
defective  sack  will  be  found,  on  examination,  to 
be  defective.  Then  there  is  still  another  machine 
for  polishing  the  bean — rubbing  off  the  delicate, 
tissue-paper  membrane  that  covers  it  inside  of  the 
parchment.  This  process  does  not  affect  the  flavor. 
In  fact  nothing  affects  the  flavor  of  coffee  after  it 
has  once  been  dried ;  but  the  separation  and  the 
polishing   give   it  what   is  known    to  the   trade   as 

86 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"  style."  And  in  the  trade  there  is  as  much  poppy- 
cock about  coffee  as  there  is  about  wine  and  cigars. 
When  you  telephone  to  your  grocer  for  a  mixture 
of  Mocha  and  Java  do  you  by  any  chance  imagine 
that  you  are  going  to  receive  coffee  from  Arabia 
and  the  Dutch  islands?  What  you  do  receive,  the 
coffee  kings  alone  knovv^.  There  are,  I  have  been 
told,  a  few  sacks  of  real  Mocha  in  the  United 
States,  just  as  there  are  a  few  real  Vandykes  and 
Holbeins,  and  if  you  are  very  lucky  indeed,  the 
Mocha  in  your  mixture  will  have  been  grown  in 
Mexico. 

Sometimes  at  the  height  of  the  picking  season 
the  day  is  not  long  enough,  the  washing  tanks  are 
not  large  enough,  and  the  workers  are  not  numerous 
enough  to  attend  to  both  the  coffee-drying  on  the 
asoleadero  and  the  growing  pile  of  berries  that  are 
constantly  being  carried  in  from  the  trees.  When 
this  happens  the  dispulping  has  to  be  done  at  night, 
and  until  four  or  five  in  the  morning  the  monot- 
onous plaint  of  the  machine,  grinding,  grinding 
like  the  mills  of  some  insatiable  Mexican  god, 
comes  faintly  over  from  the  tanks.  Under  a  flaring 
torch  and  fortified  with  a  bottle  of  aguardiente  the 
men  take  turns  through  the  long  night  at  filling 
the  hopper  and  turning  the  heavy  wheel,  bursting 

87 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

now  and  then  into  wild,  improvised  recitatives  that 
are  answered  by  whomever  happens  for  the  mo- 
ment to  be  most  illuminated  by  either  the  aguar- 
diente or  the  divine  fire.  They  begin  to  improvise 
to  this  rapid,  savage  burst  of  a  few  minor  phrases 
from  the  time  they  are  children.  Almost  any  grown 
man  can  do  it,  although  there  is  a  standard  of  ex- 
cellence in  the  art  (I  have  begun  to  detect  it  when 
I  hear  it),  recognized  among  themselves,  that  only 
a  few  attain.  It  takes  into  consideration  both  the 
singer's  gift  for  dramatic  or  lyric  invention  and  the 
quality  of  his  voice,  a  loud,  strained  tenor  with 
falsetto  embellishments  being  the  most  desirable.  I 
have  heard  Censio,  the  mayordomo's  little  boy, 
aged  three  or  four,  singing,  for  an  hour  at  a  time, 
sincere  and  simple  eulogies  of  his  father's  cows. 
Since  I  brought  him  a  small  patrol  wagon  drawn 
by  two  spirited  iron  horses  his  voice,  however,  is  no 
longer  lifted  in  commemoration  of  **  O  mis  vacas ! 
O  mis  vacas!  O  mis  vacas!  "  but  of  "  O  mis  cabal- 
litos!  O  mis  caballitos!  O  mis  caballitos!  "  They 
improvise,  too,  at  the  dances,  where  the  music  is 
usually  a  harp  and  a  jarana — breaking  in  anywhere, 
saying  their  say,  and  then  waiting  for  the  reply. 
Women  rarely  take  part  in  these  Tannhauseresque 
diversions,  although  I   remember  one  woman  at  a 

88 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

dance  on  my  own  piazza  who  got  up  and  proceeded 
to  chant  with  a  wealth  of  personal  and  rather  em- 
barrassing detail  the  story  of  her  recent  desertion 
by  the  man  she  loved.  He  had  of  course  deserted 
her  for  some  one  else,  and  at  the  end  of  her  re- 
markable narrative  she  sang,  in  a  perfect  debauch 
of  emotion  and  self-pity:  "  But  I  am  of  a  forgiving 
nature!  Come  back,  come  back,  my  rose,  my  heart, 
my  soul — the  bed  is  big  enough  for  three!  "  Some- 
times when  there  is  a  dance  at  a  neighboring  ranch 
the  harpist  and  his  son,  who  plays  the  jarana,  stop 
at  my  place  on  their  way  home  in  the  morning 
and  play  to  me  (the  son  also  improvises)  while  I 
am  at  breakfast.  The  harpist  is  always  drunk,  and 
his  instrument,  after  a  night  of  hard  work,  out  of 
tune.  He  appeared  not  long  ago  when  I  had  stay- 
ing with  me  a  Boston  lawyer — my  only  visitor  so 
far  this  year. 

"  Isn't  it  horrible  to  eat  soft  boiled  eggs  and 
toast  in  this  pandemonium/'  I  called  to  him  across 
the  breakfast  table. 

"  No,"  he  answered,  "  it's  splendid — it's  just  like 
being  an  Irish  king."  The  harpist  was  drunker 
than  usual  that  morning  when  he  rode  away  with 
his  harp  in  front  of  him  on  the  pommel  of  his 
saddle,  his  son  trudging  along  behind,  and  when  he 
7  89 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

reached  the  middle  of  the  river  he  fell  off  his  horse 
and  was  nearly  drowned.  Later  I  saw  what  was 
once  a  harp  hanging  in  midstream  to  a  rock.  A 
shattered  harp  clinging  to  a  cruel  rock  surrounded 
by  rushing  water!  I'm  sure  it  was  beautifully  sym- 
bolical of  something — but  what? 

The  harpist  and  the  mother  of  the  boy  who  as- 
sists him  at  dances  were  really  married,  he  told  me, 
but  they  haven't  lived  together  for  years.  Since 
then  the  boy  has  had  a  succession  of  informal  step- 
mothers who  never  stayed  very  long,  and  just  re- 
cently the  harpist  has  really  married  again.  In 
fact,  the  harpist's  home  life  is  typical  of  the  matri- 
monial situation  here,  which  for  many  reasons  is 
endlessly  interesting.  Among  the  lower  classes  in 
Mexico  "  free  love  "  is  not  the  sociological  experi- 
ment it  sometimes  tries  to  be  in  more  civilized  com- 
munities. It  is  a  convention,  an  institution,  and, 
in  the  existing  condition  of  affairs,  a  necessity.  Let 
me  explain. 

The  Mexicans  are  an  excessively  passionate  peo- 
ple and  their  passions  develop  at  an  early  age  (I 
employ  the  words  in  a  specific  sense),  not  only  be- 
cause nature  has  so  ordered  it,  but  because,  owing 
to  the  way  in  which  they  live — whole  families,  not 
to  mention  animals,  in  a  small,  one-roomed  house — 

90 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

the  elemental  facts  of  life  are  known  to  them  from 
the  time  they  can  see  with  their  eyes  and  hear  with 
their  ears.  For  a  Mexican  child  of  seven  or  eight 
among  the  lower  classes,  there  are  no  mysteries. 
Boys  of  fifteen  have  had  their  affairs  with  older 
women ;  boys  of  seventeen  are  usually  strongly  at- 
tracted by  some  one  person  whom  they  would  like 
to  marry.  And  just  at  this  interesting  and  im- 
portant crisis  the  Church  furnishes  the  spectator 
with  one  of  its  disappointing  and  somewhat  gross 
exhibitions. 

It  seems  to  have  been  proven  that  for  people  in 
general  certain  rigid  social  laws  are  a  comfort  and 
an  aid  to  a  higher,  steadier  standard  of  thought  and 
life.  In  communities  where  such  usages  obtain,  the 
ordinary  person,  in  taking  unto  himself  a  wife,  does 
so  with  a  feeling  of  finality.  On  one's  wedding 
day,  but  little  thought  is  given,  I  fancy,  to  the 
legal  loopholes  of  escape.  It  strikes  one  as  strange, 
as  wicked  even,  that  a  powerful  Church  (a  Church, 
moreover,  that  regards  marriage  as  a  sacrament) 
should  deliberately  place  insuperable  obstacles  in  the 
path  of  persons  who  for  the  time  being,  at  least, 
have  every  desire  to  tread  the  straight  and  narrow 
way.  This,  to  its  shame,  the  Church  in  Mexico 
does. 

91 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

The  only  legally  valid  marriage  ceremony  in 
Mexico  is  the  civil  ceremony,  but  to  a  Mexican  peon 
the  civil  ceremony  means  nothing  whatever ;  he  can't 
grasp  its  significance,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
prosaic,  businesslike  proceeding  to  touch  his  heart 
and  stir  his  imagination.  The  only  ceremony  he 
recognizes  is  one  conducted  by  a  priest  in  a  church. 
When  he  is  married  by  a  priest  he  believes  himself 
to  be  married — w^hich  for  moral  and  spiritual  pur- 
poses is  just  as  valuable  as  if  he  actually  were.  One 
would  suppose  that  the  Church  would  recognize  this 
and  encourage  unions  of  more  or  less  stability  by 
making  marriage  inexpensive  and  easy.  If  it  had 
the  slightest  desire  to  elevate  the  lower  classes  in 
Mexico  from  their  frankly  bestial  attitude  toward 
the  marital  relation — to  inculcate  ideas  different 
and  finer  than  those  maintained  by  their  chickens 
and  their  pigs — it  could  long  since  easily  have  done 
so.  But  quite  simply  it  has  no  such  desire.  In 
the  morality  of  the  masses  it  shows  no  interest. 
For  performing  the  marriage  ceremony  it  charges 
much  more  than  poor  people  can  pay  without  going 
into  debt.  Now  and  then  they  go  into  debt;  more 
often  they  dispense  with  the  ceremony.  On  my 
ranch,  for  instance,  very  few  of  the  "  married  " 
people  are  married.    Almost  every  grown  man  lives 

92 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

with  a  woman  who  makes  his  tortillas  and  bears  him 
children,  and  about  some  of  these  households  there 
is  an  air  of  permanence  and  content.  But  with  the 
death  of  mutual  desire  there  is  nothing  that  tends 
to  turn  the  scale  in  favor  of  permanence;  no  sense 
of  obligation,  no  respect  for  a  vague  authority  higher 
and  better  than  oneself,  no  adverse  public  opinion. 
Half  an  hour  of  ennui,  or  some  one  seen  for  a 
moment  from  a.  new  point  of  view — and  all  is  over. 
The  man  goes  his  way,  the  woman  hers.  The  chil- 
dren, retaining  their  father's  name,  remain,  as  a 
rule,  with  the  mother.  And  soon  there  is  a  new 
set  of  combinations.  One  woman  who  worked  here 
had  three  small  children — everyone  with  a  different 
surname;  the  name  of  its  father.  While  here,  she 
kept  house  with  the  mayordomo,  who  for  no  reason 
in  particular  had  wearied  of  the  wife  he  had  mar- 
ried in  church.  No  one  thought  it  odd  that  she 
should  have  three  children  by  different  men,  or  that 
she  should  live  with  the  mayordomo,  or  that  the 
mayordomo  should  tire  of  his  wife  and  live  with 
her.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  nothing  odd 
about  it.  No  one  was  doing  wrong,  no  one  was 
"  flying  in  the  face  of  public  opinion."  She  and 
the  three  men  who  had  successively  deserted  her, 
the  mayordomo  who  found  it  convenient   to   form 

93 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

an  alliance  with  her,  and  his  wife,  who  betook  her- 
self to  a  neighboring  ranch  and  annexed  a  boy  of 
sixteen,  were  all  simply  living  their  lives  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  promptings  they  had  never  been 
taught  to  resist.  It  is  not  unusual  to  hear  a  mother, 
in  a  moment  of  irritation,  exclaim,  as  she  gives  her 
child  a  slap,  "  Hijo  de  quien  sabe  quien!"  (Child 
of  who  knows  whom!)  At  an  early  age  when  they 
first  fall  in  love  they  would,  I  think,  almost  al- 
ways prefer  to  be  married.  But  where  get  the  ten 
pesos,  without  which  the  Church  refuses  to  make 
them  man  and  wife  ?  The  idea  of  saving  and  wait- 
ing is  to  them,  of  course,  utterly  preposterous? 
Why  should  it  not  be?  What  tangible  advan- 
tage to  them  would  there  be  in  postponement? 
The  Church,  which  has  always  been  successful  in 
developing  and  maintaining  prejudices,  could  have 
developed,  had  it  wished  to,  the  strongest  prejudice 
in  favor  of  matrimony,  and  the  permanence  of  the 
marriage  tie.  But  it  has  not  done  so,  and  now, 
even  when  peons  do  have  the  religious  ceremony 
performed,  they  do  not  consider  it  binding.  After 
having  gone  to  so  much  expense,  they  are  not  likely 
to  separate  so  soon ;  but  that  is  all.  One  of  the 
men  here  has  been  married  three  or  four  times  and 
on  every  occasion  he  has  treated  himself  to  a  re- 

94 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ligious  ceremony  with  quite  a  splendid  dance  after- 
wards. As  he  is  a  skilled  mason  who  commands 
good  wages  and  has  no  bad  habits  (except  that  of 
getting  married  every  little  while),  he  can  afford 
it.  He  is  a  genial  sort  of  a  creature  and  I  think 
he  enjoys  having  weddings  very  much  as  some  per- 
sons enjoy  having  dinner  parties.  Sometimes  he 
deserts  his  wives  and  sometimes  they  desert  him. 
Of  course  I  don't  know,  but  I  have  an  idea  that 
to  have  been  married  to  him  at  one  time  or  another 
carries  with  it  considerable  prestige.  And  yet  you 
ask  me  if  I  am  not  now  and  then  homesick  for 
New  York! 

Or  did  you  merely  ask  me  if  I  didn't  find  this 
kind  of  a  life  desperately  lonely?  Everybody  at 
home  has  asked  me  this  until  I  have  come  to  be- 
lieve that  the  modern  American's  greatest  dread, 
greater  even  than  the  dread  of  sickness  or  of  death, 
is  the  dread  of  being  alone.  But  although  I  no 
longer  have  it,  I  am  able  to  understand  it.  For  I 
can  vividly  remember  the  time  when  there  were 
scarcely  any  circumstances  I  could  not  control  suf- 
ficiently to  insure  me  constant  companionship.  It 
was  novel  arfd  pleasant  occasionally  to  putter  alone 
for  a  few  hours  in  one's  room,  or  in  solitude  to 
lose  oneself   in   an  absorbing  book,   with  the  half- 

95 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

formed  purpose  of  soon  finding  somebody  with 
whom  to  discuss  it.  But  to  walk  alone,  to  dine 
alone,  to  go  to  the  theater  alone — to  think  alone! 
To  be,  in  a  word,  for  any  length  of  time,  on  one's 
own  hands — face  to  face  with  nothing  but  one- 
self! I  could  not  possibly  describe  the  restlessness, 
the  sense  of  "  missing  something,"  the  acute  melan- 
choly I  have  experienced  on  the  rare  occasions  when 
in  those  days  the  improbable  happened  and  for  an 
afternoon  and  evening  I  was  left — alone.  Just  when 
and  how  the  change  came  I  have  no  idea.  With- 
out at  the  moment  feeling  them,  one  acquires  per- 
sistent little  lines  that  extend  from  the  outer  cor- 
ners of  one's  eyes  and  almost  meet  the  gray  hairs 
below  and  behind  one's  temples.  The  capacity — 
the  talent — for  being  alone  comes  to  some  in  the 
same  way.  With  me  it  has  been  as  gradual  as  the 
accentuation  of  the  streaks  across  my  forehead,  or 
the  somewhat  premature  blanching  of  the  hair 
around  my  ears.  I  only  know  that  it  has  come 
and  that  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  can  be — and  I  some- 
times am — alone  indefinitely  for  weeks — for  months 
— without  feeling  that  life  is  passing  me  by.  I 
may  not,  on  the  one  hand,  have  periods  of  great 
gayety,  but  on  the  other  there  is  a  placid  kind  of 
satisfaction,   more  or  less  continuous,    in  realizing 

96 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

that  one's  resources  are  a  greater  comfort  than  one's 
limitations  are  a  distress.  At  first  I  was  rather 
vain,  I  confess,  of  the  facility  with  which  I  could 
"  do  without  " ;  I  used  to  find  myself  picturing  cer- 
tain old  friends  in  these  surroundings  and  despising 
their  very  probable  anguish.  One,  I  felt  sure, 
would  find  his  solace  by  perpetually  dwelling  in 
imagination  upon  his  little  triumphs  of  the  past 
(there  are  so  many  kinds  of  little  past  triumphs)  — 
in  seeking  to  span  the  unspanable  gulfs  behind  him 
with  innumerable  epistolary  bridges.  The  ej'es  of 
another  would  be  fixed  on  the  far  horizon ;  he 
would  live  through  the  interminable  days,  as  so 
many  persons  live  through  their  lives,  hovering  upon 
the  brink  of  a  vague,  wonderful  something  that 
doesn't  happen.  Another  would  take  to  aguar- 
diente, which  is  worse,  they  say,  than  morphine, 
and  thenceforward  his  career  would  consist  of  trying 
to  break  himself  of  the  habit. 

But  I  hope  I  have  got  over  being  vain — indeed, 
I've  got  over  being  a  lot  of  things.  Solitude  is  a 
great  chastener  when  once  you  accept  it.  It  quietly 
eliminates  all  sorts  of  traits  that  were  a  part  of 
you — among  others,  the  desire  to  pose,  to  keep  your 
best  foot  forever  in  evidence,  to  impress  people  as 
being  something  j-ou  would  like  to  have  them  think 

97 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

you  are  even  when  you  aren't.  Some  men  I  know 
are  able  to  pose  in  solitude;  had  they  valets  they 
no  doubt  would  be  heroes  to  them.  But  I  find  it 
the  hardest  kind  of  work  myself,  and  as  I  am  lazy 
I  have  stopped  tr}'ing.  To  act  without  an  audi- 
ence Is  so  tiresome  and  unprofitable  that  you 
gradually  give  it  up  and  at  last  forget  how  to  act 
at  all.  For  3  ou  become  more  interested  in  making 
the  acquaintance  of  yourself  as  you  really  are; 
which  is  a  meeting  that,  in  the  haunts  of  men, 
rarely  takes  place.  It  is  gratifying,  for  example, 
to  discover  that  you  prefer  to  be  clean  rather  than 
dirtj^  even  when  there  is  no  one  but  God  to  care 
which  you  are;  just  as  it  is  amusing  to  note,  how- 
ever, that  for  scrupulous  cleanliness  you  are  not  in- 
clined to  make  superhuman  sacrifices,  although  you 
used  to  believe  you  were.  Clothes  you  learn,  with 
something  of  a  shock,  have  for  you  no  interest 
whatever.  You  come  to  believe  that  all  your  life 
you  have  spent  money  in  unnecessary  raiment  to 
please  yourself  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  pleasant  to 
gain  the  approval  of  others.  You  learn  to  regard 
dress  merely  as  a  covering,  a  precaution.  For  its 
color  and  its  cut  you  care  nothing. 

But  the  greatest  gift  in  the  power  of  loneliness 
to  bestow  is  the  realization  that  life  does  not  con- 

98 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

sist  either  of  wallowing  in  the  past  or  of  peering 
anxiously  at  the  future ;  and  it  is  appalling  to  con- 
template the  great  number  of  often  painful  steps 
b\'  which  one  arrives  at  a  truth  so  old,  so  obvious, 
and  so  frequently  expressed.  It  is  good  for  one 
to  appreciate  that  life  is  now.  Whether  it  offers 
little  or  much,  life  is  now — this  day — this  hour — 
and  is  probably  the  only  experience  of  the  kind  one 
is  to  have.  As  the  doctor  said  to  the  woman  who 
complained  that  she  did  not  like  the  night  air: 
"  Madam,  during  certain  hours  of  every  twenty- 
four,  night  air  is  the  only  air  there  is."  Solitude 
performs  the  inestimable  service  of  letting  us  dis- 
cover that  it  is  our  lives  we  are  at  every  moment 
passing  through,  and  not  some  useless,  ugly,  inter- 
polated interval  between  what  has  been  and  what 
is  to  come.  Life  does  not  know  such  intervals. 
They  can  have  no  separate  identity  for  they  are  life 
itself,  and  to  realize  this  makes  what  has  seemed 
long  and  without  value,  both  precious  and  fleet- 
ing. The  fleeting  present  may  not  be  just  what 
we  once  dreamed  it  might  be,  but  it  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  present,  whereas  our  past  is  dead 
and  our  future  may  never  be  born. 

So  you  see,   I  am  not  lonely — or  I  mean,  when 
I  am  lonely  (for  everj'one  is  lonely),  I  try  to  re- 

99 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

gard  it  as  a  purely  objective  affliction,  like  the  sting 
of  a  wasp,  or  the  hot  blister  that  comes  when  you 
carelessly  touch  a  leaf  of  mala  mujer.  For  minor 
objective  afflictions  there  is  always  some  sort  of  an 
alleviator,  and  for  loneliness  I  have  found  a  remedy 
in  reflecting  that  the  sensation  itself  is  never  as 
interesting  or  as  important  as  the  circumstances  that 
cause  it.  All  of  which  brings  me  back  again  to 
this  hillside  clearing  in  the  jungle  with  its  lovely 
views,  its  outrageous  climate,  its  mysterious  people, 
its  insidious  fascination.  Do  you  ever  have  a  feel- 
ing of  skepticism  as  to  the  continued  existence  of 
places  you  are  no  longer  in?  I  can  shut  my  eyes 
and  see  Boston  and  New  York  and  Paris,  for  in- 
stance, as  they  are  in  their  characteristic  ways  at 
almost  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night.  I  know  just 
how  the  people  in  certain  quarters  are  conducting 
themselves,  where  they  are  going  next,  and  what 
they  will  say  and  do  when  they  arrive.  But  I  don't 
altogether  believe  in  it.  It  doesn't  seem  possible, 
somehow,  that  they  are  going  ceaselessly  on  and  on 
when  I  am  not  there  to  see.  Something  happens 
to  places  where  I  no  longer  am.  Until  I  go  back 
to  them  I'm  sure  they  must  be  white  and  blank  like 
the  screen  in  a  cinematograph  performance  between 
the  end  of  one  film  and  the  beginning  of  the  next. 

lOO 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Just  at  present,  nowhere  is  particularly  existent  but 
here. 

It  is  a  cloudless,  burning  day,  the  best  kind  of 
a  day  for  coflfee,  and  the  asoleadero  is  covered  with 
it.  Through  the  house  there  is  a  slight  stir  of  air, 
and  the  fact  that  the  house-boy  has  just  swept  the 
floor  with  wet  tea  leaves  left  over  from  several 
breakfasts,  makes  the  breeze  for  the  moment  seem 
cool — which  it  isn't.  On  such  a  day  one  is  grate- 
ful for  the  bareness  of  a  room — the  smooth,  un- 
adorned walls,  the  hard,  cool  chairs.  From  the 
asoleadero  comes  without  ceasing  the  harsh,  hollow 
sound  of  the  wooden  hoes  as  they  turn  the  cofifee 
over  in  the  sun  and  scrape  against  the  cement.  It 
IS  a  hot  and  drowsy  sound ;  the  Mexican  equiva- 
lent of  the  sound  made  by  a  lawn  mower  in  an 
American  "  front  yard  "  in  August.  It  would  send 
me  to  sleep,  I  think,  if  it  were  not  counteracted  by 
the  peculiar  rustling  of  a  clump  of  banana  trees 
outside  the  window.  The  slightest  breath  of  air 
puts  their  torn  ribbons  into  motion  that  is  a  pro- 
longed patter,  indistinguishable  usually  from  the 
patter  of  rain.  To-day  it  is  more  like  the  plashing 
of  a  fountain — a  fountain  that,  on  account  of  the 
goldfish,  plashes  gently.  Whenever  we  need  rain — 
and  in  the  middle  of  the  night  1  wake  up  and  seem 

lOI 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

to  hear  it — it  turns  out  to  be  the  banana  trees; 
but  when  "  too  much  water  has  fallen,"  as  they 
say  here,  and  I  persuade  myself  that  this  time  it  is 
only  a  fluttering  in  the  banana  trees,  it  is  always 
rain.  The  whole  landscape  is  suspended  in  heat 
haze  ("swooning"  is  the  word  I  should  like  to 
use,  but  I  shan't),  from  the  bamboo  trees  nodding 
against  the  sky  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  behind  the 
house,  through  the  cafe  tal  in  front  of  it,  down, 
down  the  long  valley  between  extinct,  woolly  look- 
ing volcanoes — thirty  miles  away  to  the  sea.  The 
sea,  for  some  reason,  never  looks  from  this  distance 
like  the  sea;  it  is  not  flat  but  perpendicular.  I 
should  have  thought  it  a  pale-blue  wall  across  the 
valley's  lower  end.  In  an  untiled  corner  of  the 
piazza  some  chickens  are  taking  dust  baths  and 
talking  scandal  in  low  tones;  the  burro,  near  by, 
has  curled  up  in  the  shade  like  a  dog  and  gone  to 
sleep.  I  used  to  think  I  should  never  allow 
chickens  to  take  dust  baths,  or  burros  to  doze  on 
my  piazza.  It  seemed  dreadfully  squalid  to  per- 
mit it.  Yet  I  have  long  since  come  to  it.  What 
can  one  do?  Es  el  costumbre  del  pais.  So,  also, 
is  the  custom  of  letting  a  few  fastidious  hens  lay  eggs 
in  one's  bed.  But  I  have  always  been  very  firm 
about  that. 

1 02 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Except  for  the  chickens  and  the  burro,  the  two 
men  on  the  asoleadero,  a  buzzard  resting  on  the 
h'mb  of  a  dead  tree,  and  one  of  the  dogs  who  has 
sneaked  into  the  house  to  get  rid  of  the  flies,  and 
who  thinks  that  because  I  didn't  turn  him  out  I 
didn't  see  him,  there  is  apparently  nothing  alive  in 
the  whole  world.  And  their  animation  is  but  a 
tranquil  stupor.  It  does  not  seem  as  if  anything 
could  ever  happen  here  to  disturb  one.  I'm  sure 
I  look  as  if  I  had  been  dreaming  forever,  but  so 
far  to-day  (it  is  only  half  past  two)  there  have 
been  the  following  demands  upon  my  time  and  at- 
tention : 

At  seven,  one  of  the  men  tapped  on  my  window 
and  said  he  was  going  to  town,  so  I  got  up,  wrote 
a  note  for  him  to  post,  made  out  the  list  for  the 
grocer — sugar,  onions,  flour,  bread,  a  new  bottle 
of  olive  oil,  two  brooms,  and  a  mouse  trap — and 
gave  him  a  hundred-peso  bill  to  change  somewhere 
in  the  village  into  silver,  as  to-morrow  is  pay  day. 
It  is  inconvenient,  but  in  the  country  one  has  to 
pay  wages — even  enormous  sums  like  five  and  ten 
pesos — in  silver.  Indians  don't  understand  paper 
money  as  a  rule  and  won't  take  it ;  the  others,  too, 
are  sometimes  suspicious  of  it — which  is  a  survival, 
I  suppose,  of  the  time  when  several  different  gov- 

103 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ernments  were  trying  to  run  Mexico  at  once  and 
the  bank  notes  of  one  state  were  not  accepted  in 
another.  At  least  that  is  the  only  way  I  can  ac- 
count for  their  reluctance  to  be  paid  in  good  paper 
money.  A  man  I  know  got  tired  of  sending  every 
week  to  town  for  bags  of  silver,  and  told  the  people 
on  his  place  that  a  law  had  been  passed  (Oh,  those 
laws!)  permitting  an  employer  to  pay  only  half  as 
much  as  he  owed  to  persons  who  refused  bills. 
Thereafter  bills  were  not  scorned.  No  doubt  I 
could  say  something  of  the  same  kind,  but  more 
than  enough  laws  of  this  sort  are  "  passed  "  in  dark- 
est Mexico  as  it  is.  I  shouldn't  care  to  be  responsible 
for  another.  In  the  kitchen  there  were  no  evi- 
dences of  activity  on  the  part  of  Rosalia,  and  as  I 
was  beginning  to  be  hungry  I  knocked  on  her  door 
and  asked  her  (although  I  knew  only  too  well) 
what  was  the  matter.  She  moaned  back  that  she 
was  very  sick  and  believed  she  was  going  to  die. 
I  didn't  tell  her  I  hoped  she  would,  although  the 
thought  occurred  to  me.  For  the  trouble  with 
Dona  Rosalia  was  that  she  went  to  a  dance  last 
night  at  a  little  ranch  next  to  mine,  stayed  until 
half  past  four,  and  was  carried  home  stinko.  This 
I  had  gleaned  from  Ramon  (he  who  went  to  town), 
who  had  helped  to  carry  her.     With  the  ladies  at 

104 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

the  party  she  had  consumed  many  glasses  of  a  com- 
paratively harmless  although  repulsive  mixture  of 
eggs,  sugar,  milk,  and  brandy,  prettily  named  ron- 
poco.  With  the  gentlemen,  however,  she  had 
laughingly  tossed  off  eight  or  ten  drinks  of  aguar- 
diente, not  to  record  an  occasional  glass  of  sherry, 
until  at  last  the  gentlemen  were  obliged  laughingly 
to  toss  her  by  the  head  and  feet  into  a  corner,  w^here 
she  lay  until  they  carried  her  home  in  the  rosy  daw^n. 
I  don't  know  what  to  do  about  Rosalia.  She  is 
an  odious  woman.  If  she  w'ould  content  herself 
with  one  lover — somebody  I  know — I  shouldn't 
mind  in  the  least.  But  she  has  a  different  one  every 
week — persons  I've  never  laid  eyes  on  usually — and 
ft  makes  me  nervous  to  think  that  there  are  strange 
men  in  the  house  at  night.  Recently  I  have  re- 
sorted to  locking  the  kitchen  door  at  a  respectable 
hour  and  removing  the  key,  which  has  made  her 
furious,  as  I  have  not  been  in  the  habit  of  lock- 
ing any  doors  and  as  I  did  it  without  offering  an 
explanation.  Her  room,  furthermore,  is  without  a 
window.  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  she  tried  to 
poison  me;  they  are  great  little  poisoners.  So  I 
had  to  stand  for  half  an  hour  or  more  fanning  a 
fire  built  of  green,  damp  wood,  and  getting  my 
own  breakfast — an  orange,  a  cup  of  tea,  some  eggs, 
8  105 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  a  roll  without  butter.  The  butter  habit  has 
been  eliminated  along  with  many  others.  I  could 
get  good,  pure  American  butter  dyed  with  carrot 
juice  and  preserved  in  boracic  or  salicylic  acid,  by 
sending  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  but  it  is  too  much 
bother. 

After  breakfast  I  walked  over  to  where  they  are 
picking.  I  can't,  of  course,  help  in  the  picking, 
but  frequent,  unexpected  appearances  on  my  part 
are  not  without  value.^  If  they  were  sure  I  weren't 
coming  they  would,  in  their  zeal  to  tear  ofi  many 
berries  quickly  (they  are  paid  by  the  amount  they 
pick),  break  the  branches  and  injure  the  trees.  As 
they  have  no  respect  for  their  own  property  I  sup- 
pose It  would  be  fatuous  to  count  on  any  respect 
for  mine.  When  I  got  back  to  the  house  I  began 
to  write  to  you,  but  before  I  had  covered  half  a 
page,  one  Lucio  appeared  on  the  piazza,  apparently 
for  the  purpose  of  chatting  interminably  about  the 
weather,  the  coffee,  the  fact  that  some  one  had  died 
and  some  one  else  was  about  to  be  born ;  none  of 
which  topics  had  anything  to  do  with  the  real  ob- 
ject of  his  visit.  Three  quarters  of  an  hour  went 
by  before  he  could  bring  himself  to  ask  me  to  lend 
him  money  with  which  to  buy  two  marvelously 
beautiful  pigs.     I  was   kind,   but  I   was  firm.     I 

1 06 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

don't  mind  lending  money  for  most  needs,  but  I 
refuse  to  encourage  hogriculture.  It  is  too  har- 
rowing. When  they  keep  pigs,  no  day  goes  by  that 
the  poor,  obese  things  do  not  escape  and,  helplessly 
rolling  and  stumbling  down  the  hill,  squeal  past 
the  house  with  a  dog  attached  to  every  ear.  Be- 
sides, they  root  up  the  young  coffee  trees.  No, 
Lucio,  no.  Chickens,  ducks,  turkeys,  cows,  lions, 
and  tigers  if  you  must,  but  not  pigs,  Lucio — in- 
scrutable person  that  he  is— perfectly  agrees  with 
me.  As  he  says  good-by  one  would  think  he  had 
originally  come  not  to  praise  pigs  but  to  protest 
against  them.  After  his  departure  there  are  at  least 
fifteen  minutes  of  absolute  quiet. 

Then  arrive  a  party  of  four — two  men  and  two 
women — respectable-looking,  well-mannered  people, 
who  stand  on  the  piazza  saying  good  morning  and 
inquiring  after  my  health.  I  have  never  seen  them 
before,  but  I  stop  my  letter  and  go  out  to  talk  to 
them,  wondering  all  the  while  where  they  have 
come  from  and  what  they  want — for,  of  course, 
they  want  something;  everybody  always  does.  For 
an  interminable  time  their  object  does  not  emerge 
and  in  the  face  of  such  pretty,  pleasant  manners  it 
is  out  of  the  question  for  me  bluntly  to  demand, 
"  What  have  you  come  for  ?  "     In  despair  I   ask 

107 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

them  if  they  would  like  to  see  the  house,  and  as 
they  stand  in  my  bare  sala,  commenting  in  awed 
undertones,  I  have  a  sudden  penetrating  flash  of 
insight  into  the  relativeness  of  earthly  grandeur. 
To  me  the  sala  is  the  clean,  ascetic  habitation  of  one 
who  has  not  only  realized  what  is  and  what  is  not 
essential,  but  who  realizes  that  every  new  nail,  pane 
of  glass,  tin  of  paint,  and  cake  of  soap  is  brought 
sixty  or  seventy  miles  through  seas  of  mud  and 
down  a  precipice  three  or  four  thousand  feet  high 
on  the  back  of  a  weary  mule.  To  them,  the  simple 
interior  is  a  miracle  of  ingenious  luxury.  They 
gaze  at  the  clumsy  fireplace,  touch  it,  try  to  see  day- 
light through  the  chimney  and  fail  to  grasp  its  pur- 
pose, although  they  revere  it  as  something  superbly 
unnecessary  that  cost  untold  sums.  The  plated 
candlesticks  on  the  table  are  too  bewildering  to 
remark  on  at  all;  they  will  refer  to  them  on  the 
way  home.  The  kitchen  range  at  first  means  noth- 
ing to  anyone,  but  when  I  account  for  it  as  an 
American  brasero  the  women  are  enthralled.  One 
of  them  confesses  she  thought  it  was  a  musical  in- 
strument— the  kind  they  have  in  church!  There 
is  nothing  more  to  exhibit,  nothing  more  to  talk 
about,  so  during  a  general  silence  one  of  the  men 
asks  me  if  I  will  sell  them  a  little  corn — enough  to 

io8 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

keep  them  for  two  days — and  I  know  they  have 
come  to  the  point  at  last.  They  work  on  a  ranch 
a  mile  or  so  away  and  the  owner,  an  Englishman, 
who  lives  in  town,  has  forgotten  or  neglected  to 
supply  them ;  they  have  none  left  for  their  tortillas. 
I  am  not  at  all  anxious  to  part  with  any  of  my 
corn,  but  I  desire  to  be  obliging  both  to  them  and 
the  Englishman,  who,  of  course,  will  be  told  of  it 
the  next  time  he  rides  out  to  his  ranch.  The  house- 
boy  having  disappeared  in  search  of  firewood,  I 
have  to  measure  the  corn  myself;  all  of  which  takes 
time. 

Next,  a  little  boy  to  buy  a  pound  of  lard.  (As  a 
convenience  I  sell  lard  at  cost.)  Then  a  little  girl 
to  say  her  mother  is  tired  and  would  like  a  drink 
of  aguardiente.  As  her  mother  cooks  for  eighteen 
men  who  are  working  here  temporarily  without 
their  families,  no  doubt  she  deserves  one.  Anyhow 
she  gets  it.  Rosalia  and  the  house-boy  usually  dole 
out  corn,  lard,  and  aguardiente,  but  Rosalia  is  still 
in  a  trance  and  the  boy  has  not  returtied.  Then 
Ezequiel,  father  of  Candelario,  stops  on  his  way 
over  to  the  coffee  tanks  to  tell  me  that  Candelario 
is  sick  and  he  would  like  me  to  prescribe.  As 
Candelario  is  one  of  my  godchildren  I  have  to  show 
Itiore  interest  in  him  than  I  feel. 

109 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"He's  always  sick,  Ezequiel,"  I  answer;  "my 
medicines  don't  seem  to  do  him  good!"  Ezequiel 
agrees  with  me  that  they  don't.  "  Except  for  his 
stomach,  which  is  swollen,  he  has  been  getting  thin- 
ner and  weaker  for  a  long  time.  Have  you  any  idea 
of  the  cause  ?  "  Ezequiel,  staring  fixedly  at  his  toes, 
confesses  that  he  has. 

"W^hat  is  it?" 

"  I  am  ashamed  to  tell  you." 

"  Don't  be  ashamed ;  I  shan't  speak  of  it,  and 
if  I  know  the  cause  I  may  be  able  to  do  some 
good."  Ezequiel,  still  intent  upon  his  toes,  suddenly 
looks  up  and  blurts  out: 

"  He's  a  dirt  eater." 

"  Oh,  well — that  accounts  for  it.  Why  don't  you 
make  him  stop?"  I  ask,  at  which  Candelario's 
father  shrugs  hopelessly. 

And  well  he  may,  for  dirt  eating  seems  to  be  a 
habit  or  a  vice  or  a  disease,  impossible  to  cure. 
Many  of  them  have  it — grown  persons  as  well  as 
children — and  in  the  interest  of  science,  or  morbid 
curiosity,  perhaps,  I  have  tried,  but  with  little  suc- 
cess, to  get  some  definite  information  on  the  sub- 
ject. Nobody  here  who  drinks  to  excess  objects  to 
admitting  he  is  a  drunkard.  He  will  refer  to  him- 
self rather  proudly  as  "  hombre   perdido  "    (a  lost 

HO 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

man),  and  expect  to  be  patted  on  the  back.  But 
I  have  known  a  dirt  eater  to  deny  he  was  one  even 
after  a  surgeon,  to  save  his  life,  had  operated  on 
him  and  removed  large  quantities  of  dirt.  As  the 
habit  is  considered  a  shameful  one,  information  at 
first  hand  is  impossible  to  acquire.  Candelario,  for 
instance,  is  only  seven,  but  although  his  father  and 
mother  know  he  is  a  dirt  eater,  they  have  never 
caught  him  in  the  act.  "  We  have  watched  him 
all  day  sometimes,"  Ezequiel  declared,  "  every  min- 
ute ;  and  he  would  lie  awake  at  night  until  we  were 
both  asleep  and  then  crawl  out  of  the  house  to  get 
it."  Whether  there  is  a  particular  kind  of  soil  to 
which  the  victims  are  addicted  or  whether  any  suf- 
ficiently gritty  substance  will  do,  I  don't  know; 
neither  does  Ezequiel.  Among  foreigners  here  the 
theory  is  that  their  stomachs  have  become  apathetic 
to  the  assaults  of  chile  and  demand  an  even  more 
brutal  form  of  irritation.  General  emaciation  and 
an  abdominal  toy  balloon  are  the  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  the  habit  which  can  be  broken  they 
say  only  by  death.  One  woman  on  the  place  died 
of  it  last  year,  and  her  seventeen-year-old  son,  who 
must  have  begun  at  an  early  age  as  his  physical 
development  is  that  of  a  sickly  child  of  ten,  is 
not   long   for  this   world.     There   was  nothing    I 

III 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

could  do  for  my  unfortunate  little  godchild,  and 
Ezequiel  walked  slowly  away,  looking  as  depressed 
as  I  felt.  For  Candelario  is  a  handsome,  intelli- 
gent little  boy  and  deserves  a  better  fate.  But — 
"  estera  mejor  con  Dios!"  (He'll  be  better  off 
with  God.) 

From  then  until  luncheon  there  is  comparative 
peace.  That  is  to  say,  when  I  am  disturbed  I  am 
not  disturbed  for  long  at  a  time.  A  breathless 
woman  comes  to  "  get  something  "  for  her  husband 
who  has  just  been  bitten  in  the  foot  by  a  snake. 
As  she  is  scared,  she  omits  the  customary  preludes 
and  I  get  rid  of  her  within  ten  minutes.  I  have 
a  hypodermic  injection  for  snake  bites  that  comes 
from  Belgium  in  little  sealed  bottles  and  seems  to  be 
efficacious,  but  as  the  snake  that  bit  her  husband  was 
very  small  (a  bravo  amarillo,  I  think  she  named 
it),  and  as  he  had  been  bitten,  unsuccessfully,  four 
j^ears  ago  by  another  member  of  the  same  family, 
I  do  not  waste  one  on  him.  Instead,  I  send  him 
several  drinks  of  ammonia  and  water  which  may 
or  may  not  have  any  effect  on  snake  bites.  To  tell 
the  truth,  I  don't  care.  The  house-boy  on  re- 
turning from  the  mountain  with  a  mule-load  of 
firewood  declares  that  the  occasion  is  auspicious  for 
anointing  one  of  the  dogs  who  has  the  mange.     As 

112 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

the  application  of  the  salve  is  painful  to  the  dog 
who  endeavors  to  hite  the  boy,  It  is  necessary  for 
me  to  pat  the  poor  thing's  head  and  engage  him  In 
conversation  while  the  boy  craftily  dabs  and  smears 
in  the  rear.  When  this  precarious  performance  Is 
taking  place  I  notice  a  turkey,  a  magnificent  and 
sedate  bird,  who  seems  completely  to  have  lost  his 
ordinarily  fine  mind.  He  Is  rushing  about  in  a 
most  agonized  fashion,  beating  his  head  In  the  dust, 
at  times  pausing  and — perhaps  I  Imagine  it — turn- 
ing pale  and  looking  as  If  he  were  about  to  faint. 

"  Manuel — what  on  earth  Is  the  matter  with 
him?     He  has  gone  crazy,"  I  exclaim. 

"  Oh,  no,"  Manuel  placidly  answers,  "  he  fought 
so  much  with  the  other  turkeys  and  with  some  of 
the  roosters  as  well,  that  I  stuck  a  feather  through 
his  nostrils.  I  thought  it  might  divert  his  atten- 
tion." And  he  smilingly  waits  for  me  to  praise  his 
thoughtful  Ingenuity. 

It  takes  us  fifteen  minutes  to  catch  the  distracted 
turkey  and  remove  the  feather.  By  that  time  I  am. 
In  every  sense,  too  overheated  to  permit  myself  to 
talk  to  Manuel  on  the  subject  of  cruelty  to  ani- 
mals. Some  time  when  I  have  just  had  a  bath,  put 
on  a  fresh  suit  of  white  clothes,  and  am  feeling  al- 
together cool  and  calm  and  kind,  I  shall  tell  him 

113 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

a  few  things.  But  to  what  end?  If  he  had  been 
willfull}',  deliberately  cruel  to  the  turkey  there 
might  be  some  hope  of  converting  him — of  bringing 
about  a  change  of  heart.  But  he  wasn't  consciously 
cruel.  Like  most  Mexicans  he  is  fond  of  animals. 
In  fact,  there  is  in  Mexico  more  emotion  expended 
on  pet  animals  than  in  any  country  I  know.  They 
make  pets  of  their  sheep  and  their  pigs,  and  one 
frequently  sees  a  child  sitting  in  a  doorway  or  by 
the  roadside  nursing  a  contented  chicken.  Yet  in 
emotion  it  more  often  than  not  begins  and  ends. 
Their  lack  of  real  kindness,  of  consideration,  of 
thought,  in  a  word,  is  infuriating.  Everyone  on  the 
ranch  has  dogs,  and  at  times  they  are  petted,  played 
with,  admired,  and  called  by  affectionate  names — 
but  they  are  never  fed.  I  have  seen  a  family  go 
into  ecstasies  for  hours  at  a  time  over  six  new-bom 
puppies  and  then  merely  shrug  and  change  the 
subject  when  it  was  suggested  that  they  ought  to 
feed  the  pitifully  thin  little  mother.  The  national 
love  of  grace  and  beauty  renders  them  sensitive  to 
the  beauty  and  grace  of  animals,  but  to  their  com- 
forts, even  their  necessities,  they  are  blind  and 
therefore  indifferent.  They  are  all  rather  incapa- 
ble of  divided  feelings.  Manuel  had  not  the  slight- 
est feeling  of  compassion  for  the  turkey's  torture. 

114 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

The  fact  that  he  had  prevented  the  bird  from  fight- 
ing was  all  sufficient  and  left  no  room  in  his  intel- 
ligence for  any  other. 

Rosalia  heroically  manages  to  cook  and  serve  my 
luncheon,  and  as  she  drags  herself  in  and  out,  the 
color  of  a  faded  lettuce  leaf,  with  her  rebozo  over 
one  eye,  I  almost  feel  sorry  for  her.  But  I  steel 
my  heart  and  make  no  comment  either  on  her  ill- 
ness or  her  partial  recovery.  After  luncheon  I 
again  take  my  intermittent  pen  in  hand  and  im- 
mediately throw  it  down.  There  is  a  scurrying  of 
bare  feet  on  the  piazza  and  six  of  the  carpenter's 
sons  gather  about  the  door.  They  are  all  crying 
and,  although  it  is  no  doubt  physiologically  impos- 
sible, they  are  all  about  ten  years  old.  The  car- 
penter has  eight  sons,  but  one  is  noticeably  younger 
and  the  other  is  an  infant  in  arms. 

"  What  has  happened  ?  "  I  ask  serenely ;  for  I 
have  grown  to  regard  battle,  murder,  and  sudden 
death  as  conventional  forms  of  relaxation.  Six, 
sobbing,  simultaneous  versions  of  the  tragedy  leave 
me  ignorant. 

"  Now,  one  of  you  come  in — you,  Florenzio — 
and  tell  me  about  it.  All  the  others  go  around  to 
the  kitchen  and  tell  Dona  Rosalia.  Now  then,  Flo- 
renzio, be  a  man  and  stop  cr}ing.     What  is  it?" 

115 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

I  demand.  Florenzio's  narrative  has  moments  of 
coherence.  His  father  (usually  the  best  of  fathers) 
went  to  the  dance  last  night  and  came  home  drunk 
(he  rarely  drinks).  This  morning,  as  he  felt  so 
badly,  he  tried  to  "  cure  "  himself  (they  always  do) 
by  drinking  a  little  more.  By  ten  o'clock  he  was 
all  right,  and  then — and  then,  "  he  passed  the 
cure\"  (This,  I  think,  is  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful phrases  in  the  language.)  After  he  had 
"  passed  the  cure  "  he  suddenly  went  crazy,  smashed 
all  the  cooking  utensils  on  the  floor,  and  ended 
by  seizing  a  stick  of  wood  from  the  brasero  and 
beating  his  wife  to  a  pulp.  Then  tearing  the 
baby  from  her  breast  he  reeled  with  it  into  the 
jungle. 

"  All  of  which,  my  dear  Florenzio,"  I  feel  like 
saying,  "  is  dramatic  and  fascinating — but  where  do 
/  come  in?  I  can't  undertake  to  pursue  your  esti- 
mable father  into  the  jungle,  and  I  have  no  desire 
to  inspect  the  maternal  pulp.  Why  have  you  come 
to  me?  "  But,  of  course,  I  say  nothing  of  the  kind. 
Instead,  I  am  sympathetic  and  aghast  and,  sur- 
rounded by  six  fluttering  little  carpenters,  go  over 
to  their  hut,  exclaim  at  the  broken  pottery,  condole 
with  the  pulp,  moan  about  the  evils  of  drink,  declare 
that  everything  will  come  out  satisfactorily  in  the 

116 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

end,  and  leave  them  tear-blotted  but  not  without  in- 
terest in  the  future. 

What,  however,  was  in  my  thoughts  throughout 
the  visit  was  not  the  immediate  distress  of  this  par- 
ticular family,  but  the  long  distress  which,  it  some- 
times seems  to  me,  is  the  life  of  all  of  them.  The 
house  was  tjpical  of  the  houses  on  my  place — of 
the  houses  everywhere  in  this  part  of  the  country, 
and  I  groaned  that  it  should  be,  A  small  inclosure 
of  bamboo,  fourteen  feet  by  twelve  perhaps,  the 
steep,  pointed  roof  covered  with  rough,  hand-made 
shingles  of  a  soft  wood  that  soon  rots  and  leaks. 
The  bamboo,  being  no  more  than  a  lattice,  affords 
but  slight  protection  from  a  slanting  rain  and  none 
whatever  from  the  w^'nd ;  the  dirt  floor,  therefore, 
is  damp  everywhere,  and  near  the  walls  muddy. 
At  one  end  is  a  brasero — not  the  neat,  tiled  affair 
for  charcoal,  with  holes  on  top  and  draughts  in  the 
side  that  one  sees  in  towns,  but  a  kind  of  box  made 
of  logs,  raised  from  the  ground  on  rough  legs  ant! 
filled  with  hard  earth.  A  small  fire  of  green  wood 
smolders  in  the  center  of  this,  filling  the  room  from 
time  to  time  with  blinding  smoke,  and  around  it 
(before  the  carpenter  passed  his  cure)  were  three 
or  four  jars  of  coarse  brown  pottery,  and  a  thin 
round   platter  of  unglazed   earthenware   on  which 

117 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

are  baked  the  tortillas.  Near  by  is  a  black  stone 
with  a  slight  concavity  on  its  upper  surface  and  a 
primitive  rolling  pin  of  the  same  substance  resting 
upon  it.  On  the  floor  in  the  corner  are  some  frayed 
petates — thin  mats  woven  of  palm  or  rushes.  This 
is  all,  and  this  is  home.  At  night  the  family  hud- 
dles together  for  warmth  with  nothing  but  the 
petates  between  them  and  the  damp  ground.  They 
sleep  in  their  clothes  and  try  to  cover  themselves 
with  their  well-worn  sarapes. 

In  a  perpetually  warm  climate  there  is  nothing 
deplorable  about  such  habitations,  but  from  Novem- 
ber to  March  the  tierra  templada  is  not  perpetually 
warm ;  it  is  for  weeks  at  a  time  searchingly  cold. 
The  thermometer  often  goes  down  to  forty  (Fahren- 
heit), and  forty  with  a  mad,  wet  wind  blowing 
through  the  house  is  agony  to  a  person  in  cotton 
pajamas,  trying  to  seek  repose  in  a  mud  puddle. 
During  a  protracted  norther  the  sadness  of  their 
faces,  the  languor  of  their  movements — the  silent, 
patient  wretchedness  of  them  is  indescribably  de- 
pressing. A  week  or  so  ago  during  a  norther,  when 
I  was  taking  a  walk  between  the  end  of  one  cloud 
burst  and  the  beginning  of  the  next,  I  stopped 
to  pay  my  respects  to  a  baby  who  had  been  born 
a  few   days   before.     The   mother   was  vigorousl)^ 

ii8 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

kneading  corn  with  her  stone  rolh'ng  pin  and  the 
baby,  absolutely  naked  on  a  blanket,  was  having  a 
chill. 

"  The  poor  little  thing  is  very  cold ;  it  is  shaking 
all  over,"   I   remarked. 

"  Yes,  it  has  had  chills  ever  since  it  came,"  the 
woman  answered. 

"  But  in  weather  like  this  you  ought  to  cover 
it,"  I  insisted. 

"  It  doesn't  seem  to  wish  to  be  covered,"  was 
the  reply.  Upon  which  I  observed  that  it  was  a 
very  pretty  baby,  and  departed  in  tears.  When  one 
lives  among  them  one  marvels,  not  like  the  tourist 
of  a  week,  that  they  are  dirty,  but  that  under  the 
circumstances  they  are  as  clean  as  they  are ;  not  that 
so  many  of  them  are  continually  sick,  but  that  any 
of  them  are  ever  well ;  not  that  they  love  to  get 
drunk,  but  that  they  can  bear  to  remain  sober. 

And  yet,  even  in  cold,  wet  weather  I  am  sure 
some  of  my  pity  is  wasted.  If  that  baby  lives  and 
grows  to  manhood,  a  damp  petate  on  the  ground 
and  a  thin  blanket  will  be  the  only  bed  in  its 
recollection;  a  hut  of  openwork  bamboo  (or,  at  the 
most  elaborate,  of  rough  boards  an  inch  apart)  its 
only  shelter  from  the  rain  and  wind.  Furthermore, 
a  human  being  is  never  suffering  as  acutely  as  one 

119 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

sometimes  thinks  he  is,  if  he  fails  to  take  advan- 
tage of  every  available  means  of  alleviating  his  con- 
dition. Often  when  the  faces  of  these  people  are 
wan  with  cold,  I  have  asked  them  why  they  do  not 
stuff  the  cracks  in  their  houses  and  keep  out  the 
wind.  The  jungle  a  hundred  yards  away  is  all  the 
year  luxuriant  with  great  waterproof  leaves,  which 
when  hung  on  walls  or  piled  on  roofs  are  as  im- 
permeable as  if  they  were  patented  and  cost  money. 
No  one  is  ignorant  of  their  use,  for  the  north  side 
of  almost  every  house  (it  is  from  the  north  that 
the  cold  winds  blow  here)  is  adorned  with  them. 
But  why  only  the  north  side?  If  I  knew  before- 
hand that  I  should  have  to  spend  a  week  in  one 
of  these  huts  I  should,  with  a  machete  and  two 
or  three  hours  of  effort,  make  it  warm  and  habi- 
table. But  they,  knowing  that  they  will  live  and 
die  in  one,  barely  protect  the  north  side,  sheath 
their  machetes,  cover  their  noses  with  their  sarapes, 
and  shiver  in  silence.  To  the  question,  "  Why 
don't  you  make  your  house  warm  and  dry  with 
leaves?  "  I  have  never  been  given  a  definite  or  sat- 
isfactory answer.  So  sketchy  and  evasive  have  been 
the  replies  that  I  am  actually  unable  to  remember 
what  any  of  them  were.  In  fact,  Mexicans  have 
a  genius  for  stringing  words  upon  a  flashing  chain 

120 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  shrugs  and  smiles — of  presenting  you  with  a 
verbal  rosary  which  later  you  find  yourself  unable 
to  tell. 

Such,  so  far,  has  been  my  day.  The  general  out- 
line of  the  rest  of  it  I  could  draw  with  closed  eyes. 
In  another  hour  the  sun  will  have  begun  to  lose 
its  drying  powers  and  I  shall  go  over  to  the  aso- 
leadero  to  watch  the  men  pack  the  half-dried  coffee 
into  bags  and  pile  them  up  under  cover  for  the 
night.  By  that  time  the  pickers  will  have  begun 
to  straggle  back  through  the  trees — the  women  and 
children  talking  in  tired,  quiet  voices,  the  men 
silent  and  bent  double  under  their  loads  of  berries. 
Where  we  are — with  a  hill  between  us  and  the 
western  sky — dusk  will  overtake  us  while  the  moun- 
tains opposite  and  the  distant  gulf  are  still  tinted 
with  sunset  lights  of  unimagined  delicacy;  we  shall 
have  to  measure  the  berries  and  record  the  amounts 
picked  by  the  flame  of  a  torch.  Then  everyone  will 
mysteriously  fade  away  among  the  trees,  and  be- 
fore going  back  to  the  house  I  shall  linger  alone 
a  moment  to  look  at  the  black  tracery  of  the  bamboo 
plumes  against  the  yellow  afterglow,  with  a  single 
star  trembling  through  an  azure  lake  above  them 
— perhaps  I  shall  wait  for  the  moon  to  come  out 
of  the  gulf  and  disperse  the  silver  moon  mist  that 
9  121 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

already  has  begun  to  gather  on  the  horizon.  The 
world  will  seem  to  be  a  very  quiet  one — not  silent 
with  the  intense  and  terrifying  silence  of  desert 
places,  but  peacefully,  domestically  silent.  For 
through  the  brief  twilight  will  drift  detached  and 
softened  notes  of  life — the  pat,  pat,  patting  of  a 
tortilla,  the  disembodied  rhythm  of  a  guitar,  the 
baying  of  a  hound. 

At  dinner  Rosalia  will  have  sufficiently  recovered 
to  relate  to  me,  as  she  comes  and  goes  from  the 
kitchen,  all  she  can  remember  about  the  dance  of 
the  night  before — new  scandals  to  gloat  over,  new 
elopements  to  prophesy.  What  she  can't  remember 
she  will  gliby  invent.  The  mayordomo  will  come 
in  to  report  on  the  coffee,  the  house-boy  will  tell 
me  who  has  bought  corn  and  lard,  and  in  what 
amounts.  (He  can't  write  but  he  has  the  memory 
of  a  phonograph.)  If  the  novel  you  sent  me — it 
came  yesterday — is  as  good  as  you  say  it  is,  I  shall 
forget  for  the  next  few  hours  that  Mexico  was 
ever  discovered.  I  used  to  wonder  in  bookstores 
how  anyone  could  have  the  effrontery  to  print  an- 
other book,  but  now,  since  they  have  entirely  taken 
the  place  that  used  to  be  filled  for  me  by  more  or 
less  intelligent  conversation,  I  feel  like  composing 
a  letter  of  thanks  for  every  new  writer  I  hear  of. 

122 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Before  going  to  bed  I  shall  walk  around  the  piazza 
to  see  that  none  of  the  men  who  have  been  chat- 
ting in  the  moonlight  have  set  the  place  on  fire 
with  their  cigarettes.  One  night  I  stooped  down 
to  pick  up  my  little  black  dog  who  sleeps  there, 
exclaiming  as  I  clutched  him,  "  Kitsy,  kitsy,  kitsy 
— who's  uncle's  darling!  "  or  some  equally  dignified 
remark.  But  it  wasn't  the  little  black  dog  at  all 
— it  was  the  head  of  an  Indian  who  was  spending 
the  night  there,  covered,  except  for  his  shock  of 
hair,  with  empty  coffee  sacks.  To-morrow  will  be 
just  like  to-day. 

But  perhaps  I  should  not  say  exactly  that,  for 
I  recall  the  reply  of  the  German  clerk  who  was 
asked  if  he  did  not  find  his  occupation  monotonous. 
"  Why,  no,"  he  said.  "  To-day,  for  instance,  I  am 
dating  everything  June  3d.  To-morrow,  I  shall 
write  June  4th,  and  the  day  after,  June  5th.  You 
see — in  my  work  there  is  constant  variety."  And 
so  it  is  here.  To-morrow,  no  doubt,  it  will  be  wet 
and  cool  instead  of  dry  and  hot;  the  dispulpador 
may  refuse  to  work  (it  is  almost  time  for  it  to 
get  out  of  order  again),  and  I  have  a  feeling  that 
the  bamboo  trough,  in  which  the  water  runs  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  from  its  source  to  the  washing  tanks, 
is  about  due  to  collapse  somewhere.     Then,  some 

123 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

on*  will  have  a  quarrel  with  his  wife  and  come  to 
tell  me  that  they  are  going  to  leave.  This  is  a  most 
inexplicable  phase  of  them.  When  they  have  a 
quarrel  their  one  idea,  apparently,  is  to  pack  up  their 
few  possessions  and  seek  a  change  of  scene.  If  it 
were  to  get  rid  of  each  other  I  could  understand 
it;  but  they  often  depart  together!  After  dark  a 
clacuache  (I  don't  know  how  to  spell  him,  but  that 
is  the  way  he  is  pronounced)  may  sneak  upon  the 
chickens  and  succeed  in  getting  one  of  them.  Not 
long  ago  a  wild  boar — we  have  them  here ;  small 
but  fierce — trotted  out  of  the  jungle  and  attacked 
a  3'oung  girl  who  was  sewing  in  front  of  her  family 
residence.  She  happened  to  be  alone  and  the  little 
brute  would  have  killed  her  if  some  dogs  had  not 
come  to  her  rescue.  Perhaps  it  will  happen  again. 
A  few  nights  ago  while  I  was  reading  in  the  sala, 
I  heard  a  light  clatter  of  hoofs  on  the  tiles  of  the 
piazza.  When  I  turned  from  the  lamp  to  look 
out,  a  deer  stood  peering  in  at  me  through  the  open 
door.  For  a  quarter  of  a  minute  I  almost  believed 
he  would  end  by  coming  in  and  putting  his  head 
on  my  lap ;  I  sat  so  motionless  and  tried  so  hard 
to  will  him  to.  But  he  reared  back  and  the  door- 
way was  once  more  a  frame  without  a  picture.  The 
next  afternoon  some  one  on  the  place  shot  a  deer 

124 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  tried  to  sell  me  a  piece  of  it,  but,  although  I 
liadn't  had  meat  for  days,  I  couldn't  bring  myself 
to  buy  any.     Then,  too,  it  is  about  time  for  some- 
body— somebody   very  young   or   very   old — to   die. 
Death  here  is  more   than  death;  it  is  a  social  op- 
portunity.    I  always  go  to  the  wakes,  both  because 
I  know  my  presence  adds  interest  and  eclat  to  the 
occasions   and    because   I    enjoy   them.      Everybody 
(except  me)   sits  on  the  floor — the  women  draped 
in  their  rebozos  as  if  they  were  in  church — while  the 
deceased,  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  with  candles  at 
its   head  and   feet,   and   wild   flowers   on   the  wall 
above  it,  seems  somehow  to  take  a  pallid   interest 
in  what  goes  on.     I  do  not  sit  on  the  floor  because 
the   bereaved    family    has   borrowed    a   chair    from 
Rosalia  in  the  hope  that  I  would  come.     But  when 
I  take  possession  of  it  I,  of  course,  do  not  let  on 
that  I  know  it  belongs  to  me.     For  an  hour,  per- 
haps, while  other  guests  silently  emerge  from   the 
jungle  and  sidle  quietly  into  the  room,  the  conver- 
sation is  in  undertones  and  fragmentary.    The  dead 
is  referred  to   with  affection   or   respect ;   the   most 
conventional  conventions  are,  in  a  word,  observed. 
Later,  however,  refreshments  are  handed  about  by 
the  surviving  members  of  the  household ;  the  ladies 
partake  of  sherry,  the  gentlemen  outside  relieve  the 

125 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

tension  with  aguardiente.  Gradually  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  gathering  becomes  less  formal;  talk  is 
more  sustained  and  resumes  the  flexibility  of  every 
day.  Trinidad  indulges  in  a  prolonged  reminiscence 
which  Rosalia  caps  with  a  brilliant  and  slightly  in- 
decent anecdote  that  makes  everyone  laugh.  Out- 
side the  men  have  another  drink  of  aguardiente,  and 
seating  themselves  on  the  ground  begin  to  play 
cards  by  the  light  of  a  torch.  Suddenly  there  is 
a  dog  fight.  In  some  way  the  writhing,  shrieking, 
frantic,  hairy  bodies  roll  past  the  card  players  and 
into  the  room  among  the  women  and  children. 
Everyone  screams,  and  from  my  chair  (I  am  now 
not  sitting,  but  standing  on  it)  the  floor  is  an  in- 
describable chaos.  After  this  it  is  impossible  to  re- 
construct a  house  of  sorrow.  The  deceased  is  not 
exactly  forgotten,  but  it  no  longer  usurps  the  center 
of  the  stage.  No  one  can  quite  resume  the  mood 
in  which  he  came,  and  from  then  on  the  wake  is 
in  every  respect  like  a  dance  except  for  the  facts 
that  there  is  a  dead  person  in  the  room  and  that 
there  is  no  dancing.  In  the  small  hours,  some 
thrifty  guest  opens  a  cantina  and  does  a  good  busi- 
ness in  aguardiente  and  sherry,  in  tortillas,  tamales, 
bread,  and  coffee.  I  do  not  often  stay  so  late. 
Now  and  then  I  have  to  go  to  the  village  and 

126 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

* 

be  godfather  for  some  infant  born  on  the  place, 
and  occasionally  the  festivities  that  follow  a  wed- 
ding— the  dancing  and  drinking,  card  playing  and 
fighting — vary  the  monotony  of  my  long,  quiet 
evenings.  Last  year  a  man  I  know,  who  has  a 
cattle  ranch  a  day  and  a  half  away  from  here,  issued 
a  general  invitation  to  the  countryside  to  come  to 
his  place  and  be  married  free  of  charge.  He  built 
a  temporary  chapel  and  hired  a  priest  and  for  two 
days  the  hymeneal  torch  flamed  as  it  never  had  in 
that  part  of  the  world  before.  So  many  persons 
took  advantage  of  the  opportunity  that  the  priest, 
who  began  by  marrying  a  couple  at  a  time,  was 
obliged  toward  the  last  to  line  them  up  in  little 
squads  of  six  and  eight  and  ten  and  let  them  have 
It,  so  to  speak,  by  the  wholesale.  It  was  pathetic 
to  see  old  men  and  women  with  their  children  and 
their  children's  children  all  waiting  in  the  same 
group  to  be  married. 

Once  in  a  long,  long  while  I  have  a  visitor — a 
real  visitor  I  mean ;  some  one  who  stays  a  week  or 
two,  sits  opposite  me  at  meals  and,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  talks  my  own  language.  You  can  scarcely 
— in  fact,  you  cannot  at  all — imagine  just  what  this 
means,  or  the  light  in  which  I  view  it.  It  is  a 
different  light;  "  a  light  that  never  was"  in  locali- 

127 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ties  where,  In  the  matter  of  companionship  for  an 
evening,  there  is  an  embarrassment  of  choice — where 
one  becomes  a  kind  of  selfish,  social  epicure.  You 
know  how  you  go  into  your  club  sometimes  at  half 
past  six  or  seven,  wondering  vaguely  with  whom 
you  will  dine.  There  are  fifteen  or  twenty  more 
or  less  civilized  young  men  sitting  about  drinking 
cocktails,  over  whom,  as  you  pretend  to  be  read- 
ing the  headlines  of  the  evening  paper,  you  cast  an 
appraising  eye.  Most  of  them  are  going  to  dine  at 
the  club  and  almost  any  one  of  them  would  sug- 
gest your  joining  his  group  if  you  gave  him  the 
necessary  chance.  But,  unwilling  to  commit  your- 
self, you  let  the  time  slip  by  and,  unless  you  see 
somebody  in  whom  you  are  especially  interested,  you 
end  by  dining  with  the  newspaper.  Or  if  you  do 
bind  yourself  to  any  particular  party  and  table  and 
hour,  you  often  find  yourself  regretting  the  act  even 
while  you  commit  it.  You  haven't,  after  all,  really 
anything  in  common  with  the  persons  in  whose  com- 
pany you  are  destined  to  spend  the  next  hour  and 
a  half,  you  reflect,  and  a  thousand  such  dinners 
would  bring  you   no  nearer  to  them. 

But  in  a  place  like  this  how  different  it  is!  It 
is  the  difFerence  between  looking  at  things  through 
a  telescope  and  through  a  microscope.    At  home  we 

128 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

have  opportunity  and  time  only  to  make  use  of  the 
larger,  sketchier  instrument;  after  we  pass  a  cer- 
tain age  we  rarely  learn  to  know  anyone  with  the 
searching  intimacy  that  was  the  point  and  joy  and 
sorrow  of  our  earlier  friendships.  Here,  however, 
not  from  inclination  but  from  force  of  circum- 
stances, there  is  now  and  then  a  pale  afterglow  of 
the  old  relations.  A  visitor  here  is  necessarily  an 
isolated  specimen,  and  as  such  he  is  obliged  for  the 
time  being  to  regard  me.  For  a  week  or  so  we  see 
each  other  at  rather  terribly  close  range  and  the 
experience  is  valuable.  For  it  sends  home  to  roost 
still  another  platitude,  and  it  is  only  by  accepting 
and  realizing  the  truth  of  platitudes  that  we  grow 
wise  and  tolerant  and  kinder.  It  used  to  bore  me 
beyond  the  power  of  expression  to  read  or  to  be 
told  that  "  ever}^body  has  good  qualities  and  an  in- 
teresting side,  if  you  only  know  how  to  get  at  them," 
and  I  still  would  enjoy  kicking  the  person  who  in- 
forms me  of  this  fact  with  the  air  of  one  who  lives 
on  the  heights,  yet  who  is  not  above  showing  the 
way  to  others  groping  in  the  valley.  But  although 
I  have  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  where  I  like  to 
acknowledge  it,  I  have  learned  to  believe  that  it  is 
true.  Perhaps  it  was  to  this  end  that  I  was  sent 
here.     Quien  sabe? 

129 


VIII 

WEALTH,  education,  and  travel  often  com- 
bine to  render  unimportant,  persons  who, 
had  they  stayed  at  home  in  a  state  of  com- 
parative poverty  and  ignorance,  vv^ould,  perhaps, 
have  been  worthy  of  one's  serious  consideration. 
For  money,  books,  and  the  habit  of  "  going  a  jour- 
ney "  tend  to  draw  their  possessors  toward  the 
symmetrical  eddy  known  as  "  society,"  and  society 
cannot  for  long  endure  anything  essentially  unlike 
itself.  One's  lot  may  be  cast  in  New  York,  Paris, 
London,  St.  Petersburg,  Rome,  Madrid,  or  the  City 
of  Mexico,  but  in  so  far  as  one  is  "  in  society  "  in 
any  of  those  places  one  conforms,  outwardly  at  least, 
to  a  system  of  ethics,  etiquette,  dress,  food,  drink, 
and  division  of  time  that  obtains,  with  a  few  local 
differences,  in  all  the  others.  My  acquaintance 
among  Mexicans  of  wealth,  education,  and  exten- 
sive experience  is  not,  I  confess,  numerous,  but  it 
is  sufficient  constantly  to  remind  me  of  that  ever- 
increasing  "  smallness  of  the  world  "  we  hear  so 
much  about,  and  to  impress  upon  me  how  distress- 

130 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ingly  nice  and  similar  are  persons  the  world  over 
who  have  money,  education,  the  habit  of  society,  and 
little  else.  One  Mexican  family  I  happened  not 
long  ago  to  see  every  day  for  three  months  was 
an  excellent  example  of  this  pleasant,  cosmopolitan 
blight.  They  somehow  ought  to  have  been  as  florid 
and  real,  as  indigenous  to  the  volcanic  soil,  as  were 
the  hundred  and  fifty  others  (we  were  at  a  small 
"  health  resort  ")  who  had  gathered  under  the  same 
roof  from  all  parts  of  the  republic.  Papa  ought 
to  have  joined  in  the  noisy,  frantic  games  in  the 
sala  after  dinner  and  with  a  complete  and  engag- 
ing lack  of  self-consciousness  made  a  monkey  of 
himself,  as  did  the  other  men;  mamma  ought  to 
have  come  to  breakfast  in  an  unbelted  dressing  sack 
with  her  long,  black,  wet  hair  hanging  down  her 
back  against  a  blue  or  yellow  bath  towel  attached 
by  safety  pins  to  her  shoulders,  as  did  her  lady  com- 
patriots. The  little  daughter  ought  to  have  worn 
beruffled  dresses  of  some  inexpensive  but  gaudy 
fabric  (scarlet  gingham  trimmed  with  coarse  lace, 
for  Instance),  and  on  Sunday  a  pair  of  rather  soiled, 
high-buttoned  shoes  of  white  or  pale-blue  kid.  The 
son — a  youth  of  twenty-two — ought  to  have  been 
an  Infinitely  more  tropical  young  man  than  he  was; 
more    emphatic    and   gesticulative    in   conversation, 

131 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

more  obviously  satisfied  with  himself,  and  as  to 
his  clothes,  just  a  trifle  wrong  in  every  important 
detail. 

But  papa,  who  was  a  lawyer  of  some  note,  had 
been  in  the  diplomatic  service,  and  although  one 
evening  he  did  gravely  take  part  in  a  game  of 
"Button!  button!  Who's  got  the  button?"  he 
never  permitted  himself  the  graceful  and  popular 
diversion  of  dredging  with  his  teeth  for  ten-cent 
pieces  in  a  bowl  of  flour.  Mamma  not  only  did 
not  squalidly  appear  at  breakfast  with  her  hair 
down — she  did  not  appear  at  breakfast  at  all.  The 
little  girl  dressed  sometimes  in  the  English  fashion, 
sometimes  in  the  French,  and  at  all  times  was  able 
to  chatter  fluently  and  idiomatically  in  four  lan- 
guages. The  young  man,  in  spite  of  his  American 
and  English  clothes,  could  not  have  been  mistaken 
for  an  American  or  an  Englishman,  but  he  might 
have  been,  at  first  sight,  almost  anything  else.  They 
had  lived  abroad — in  France,  in  Belgium,  in  Ger- 
many— and  they  had  lost  their  tags.  They  very 
much  resembled  the  sort  of  persons  one  is  invited 
to  meet  at  dinner  almost  anywhere ;  persons  who 
wear  the  right  clothes,  use  the  right  fork,  who  nei- 
ther come  too  early  nor  stay  too  late  and  to  whom 
it  is  second  nature  to  talk  for  three  hours  about 

132 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

nothing  at  all,  with  ease,  amiability,  and  an  ap- 
pearance of  interest. 

Their  house  in  the  City  of  Mexico  was  like  them- 
selves. It  had,  so  to  speak,  been  born  Mexican  and 
then  denationalized.  For  although  it  had  been 
built  with  a  patio  and  tiled  floors  on  the  assumption 
that  the  climate  of  Mexico  is  hot,  it  had  acquired 
half  a  dozen  fireplaces,  a  complete  epidermis  of 
Oriental  rugs,  pretty  and  comfortable  furniture, 
pictures  that  did  not  merely  make  one  giggle,  bric- 
a-brac  that  did  not  merely  make  one  sick,  a  distinct 
personality,  an  atmosphere  of  comfort  and  all  the 
other  attributes  a  genuinely  Mexican  interior  in- 
variably lacks.  It  would  be  amusing  to  blindfold 
somebody  in  New  York  or  London,  transport  him 
on  a  magic  carpet  to  one  of  the  senora's  dinner 
parties  or  afternoons  at  home,  and  ask  him  to  guess 
where  he  was. 

However  much  at  a  loss  he  might  be  for  an  an- 
swer in  this  particular  instance,  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  mistake  his 
whereabouts  could  he  be  suddenly  wafted  to  the 
little  coffee  town  of  Rebozo  and  set  down  in  the 
abode  of  my  friend,  Don  Juan  Valera.  For  al- 
though it  is  said  that  Don  Juan's  estimable  wife 
has  the  tidy  sum  of  a  million  dollars  coming  to  her 

US 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

on  the  death  of  her  father,  and  Don  Juan  has 
proved  himself  as  discreet  in  the  coffee  business  as 
he  was  in  the  business  of  matrimony,  he  is  not  a 
citizen  of  the  world.  A  visit  to  Don  Juan's  is  an 
all-day  affair — exhausting,  ruinous  to  the  digestion, 
quite  delightful,  and  Mexican  from  beginning  to 
end.  In  fact,  there  is  about  provincial  Mexican 
hospitality  a  quality  for  which  I  can  think  of  no 
more  descriptive  phrase  than  "  old-fashioned."  It 
has  a  simplicity,  a  completeness,  an  amplitude  that, 
to  one  who  is  accustomed  to  the  quick,  well-ordered 
festivities  of  modern  civilization,  seem  to  belong  to 
a  remote  period,  the  period  of  "  old  times."  We 
left  Barranca  at  half  past  eight  in  the  morning — 
enthusiastic,  vivacious,  amiable,  and,  in  appearance, 
not,  I  am  told,  unprepossessing.  We  returned  at 
seven  in  the  evening — depleted,  silent,  irritable, 
and  ages  older-looking  than  our  ages. 

The  train  to  Rebozo,  where  lives  Don  Juan, 
slides  circuitously  down  the  foothills  through  al- 
most a  tunnel  of  tropical  vegetation  and  emerges  at 
last  in  one  of  the  great  gardens  of  the  world.  One 
does  not  soon  grow  indifferent  to  tropical  foliage. 
Even  when  one  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  is  after  all  nothing  more  wonderful  in  a  gully 
full  of  plumelike  ferns,  twenty  and  thirty  feet  high, 

134 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

than  in  a  row  of  familiar  elm  or  maple  trees,  one 
involuntarily  hangs  out  of  the  window  to  marvel 
at  the  ferns.  The  green,  damp  jungle  depths,  partly- 
veiled  in  smoky  vapor  that  detaches  itself,  sails 
diagonally  up  the  hillside  and  then  shreds  into 
nothingness  as  the  hot  sunlight  finds  its  way 
through  the  trees,  recall  "  transformation  scenes " 
at  the  theater,  or  long-forgotten  pictures  in  old 
geographies.  It  is  difHcult  for  a  Northerner  simply 
to  take  their  beauty  for  granted,  as  he  does  the 
beauty  of  trees  and  shrubs  at  home,  for  there  is 
about  nature  in  the  tropics  always  a  suggestion  of 
myster}^  suffocation — evil.  I  do  not  know  if  it  is 
because  one  is  reasonably  suspicious  of  venomous 
snakes,  poisonous  plants,  and  nameless,  terrifying 
insects,  but  tropical  nature,  however  exquisite,  in- 
spires neither  confidence  nor  affection.  The  poet 
who  first  apostrophized  "  Mother  Nature  "  never 
put  on  a  pair  of  poison-proof  gloves  and  endeavored 
to  hack  a  path  through  jungle  with  a  machete.  In 
the  tropics,  the  bosom  of  Mother  Nature  does  not 
invite  her  children  to  repose. 

Don  Juan  met  us  at  the  train — which  deposits 
its  passengers  in  the  middle  of  Rebozo's  principal 
street — and,  as  it  was  still  early  in  the  morning  and 
there  were  nine  hours  of  sixty  minutes  each  ahead 

135 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  us,  most  of  which  we  were  aware  would  have 
to  be  consumed  in  sawing  conversational  wood  at 
Don  Juan's,  we  called  first  upon  the  family  of  Don 
Pedro  Valasquez  —  another  local  coffee  magnate. 
Don  Pedro's  wife — in  a  pink  cotton  wrapper,  with 
her  hair  down,  but  heavily  powdered  and  asphyxi- 
atingly  perfumed — had  no  doubt  seen  us  get  off  the 
train,  for  she  met  us  at  the  front  door,  kissed  the 
two  girls  in  our  party  (who,  after  calling  on  Mexi- 
can ladles,  always  declare  they  have  contracted  lead- 
poisoning),  and,  chattering  like  a  strange  but  kindly 
bird,  took  us  into  the  sala. 

There  is  in  all  truly  Mexican  salas  a  striking — 
a  depressing — similarity  one  does  not  notice  in  the 
drawing-rooms  of  other  countries.  It  is  as  if  there 
were,  somewhere  in  the  republic,  a  sort  of  standard 
sala — just  as  there  is  in  a  glass  case  at  Washington 
a  standard  of  weight  and  a  standard  of  measure- 
ment— which  all  the  other  salas  try,  now  humbly, 
now  magnificently,  to  approximate.  I  have  sat  in 
many  Mexican  salas  and  I  have  peeped  from  the 
street  into  many  more,  but  it  would  be  difficult  if 
not  impossible  for  me  to  know  whether  I  were  in 
the  house  of  Don  This  rather  than  in  the  house 
of  Don  That,  if  none  of  the  family  were  present  to 
give  me  a  clew.    They  are  all  long  and  high  and 

136 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

bleak.  In  the  exact  geometric  center  is  a  table  with 
nothing  on  it  but  its  chilly  marble  top.  Over  it 
hangs  an  electric  chandelier  (the  unshaded  incan- 
descent light,  like  a  bad  deed  in  an  excellent  world, 
casts  its  little  beam  almost  everywhere  in  Mexico), 
the  size  and  elaborateness  of  which  is  a  tolerably 
accurate  symptom  of  the  owner's  wealth  and  posi- 
tion. Around  the  walls  is  placed  at  intervals,  as 
regular  as  the  architecture  will  allow,  a  "  set  "  of 
furniture — usually  of  Austrian  bentwood  with  rat- 
tan seats  and  backs — the  kind  that  looks  as  if  it 
were  made  of  gas  pipe  painted  black.  Near  the 
heavily  barred  windows,  where  they  can  be  admired 
by  the  passers-by,  are  other  marble-topped  tables 
laden  with  trivial  imported  objects  of  china  and 
glass  and  metal:  bisque  figurines  painted  in  gay 
colors,  little  ornate  vases  that  could  not  hold  a 
single  flower,  fanciful  inkstands,  and  statuettes  of 
animals — rabbits  and  dogs  and  owls  —  standing 
about  on  mats  horribly  evolved  out  of  worsted  and 
beads.  The  few  pictures  are  usually  vivid  in  color 
and  obvious  in  sentiment. 

In  fact,  the  prominence  given  in  Mexican  houses 
to  advertisements  of  brewers  and  grocers — calendars 
portraying,  for  example,  a  red-cheeked  young  per- 
son  with    two    horticulturally    improbable   cherries 

10  137 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

dangling  from  her  faultless  mouth — is  indicative  of 
the  warm,  bright  school  of  art  for  which  the  na- 
tion really  cares.  The  floor  is  of  tiles — sometimes 
light-colored  and  ornamented,  but  more  often  dark- 
red  and  plain — and  the  ceiling  is  almost  invariably 
a  false  ceiling  of  painted  canvas  that  eventually 
sags  a  trifle  and  somewhat  disturbs  a  stranger  ac- 
customed to  ceilings  of  plaster  by  spectrally  rising 
and  falling  in  the  breeze.  In  hot  weather  the 
bareness  and  hardness  and  cleanliness  of  these  places, 
the  absence  of  upholstery  and  yielding  surfaces,  the 
fact  that  the  floors  can  be  sprinkled  and  swabbed 
off  with  a  wet  mop,  are  most  agreeable.  But 
whereas  in  some  parts  of  Mexico  one  or  two  days 
of  a  month  may  be  warm  and  the  other  twenty-nine 
or  thirty  cool  or  even  cold,  the  sala,  with  its  in- 
evitable echo,  frozen  floors,  and  pitiless  draughts, 
is  usually  as  inviting  as  a  mortuary  chapel.  Don 
Pedro's,  besides  containing  precisely  what  I  have 
enumerated,  had  an  upright  piano,  a  canary,  and 
a  phonograph,  and  if  I  had  needed  any  proof  of 
the  fact  that  Mexican  nerves  are  of  an  entirely 
different  quality  from  our  own,  the  hour  and  a  half 
we  spent  there  would  have  supplied  it. 

In  the  first  place,  when  "  entertaining  company  " 
in    Mexico   everybody    talks   all   the   time,   nobody 

138 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

listens,  and  the  voices  of  the  women  are  more  often 
than  not  loud  and  harsh.  When  they  hit  upon  a 
subject  with  possibilities  in  the  way  of  narrative  and 
detail,  they  cling  to  it,  develop  it,  expand  it,  and 
exhaust  it,  and  then  go  back  and  do  it  all  over 
again.  On  this  occasion  the  topic  that  naturally 
suggested  itself  when  Don  Pedro  appeared,  limping 
slightly  and  leaning  on  the  arm  of  one  of  his  daugh- 
ters, was  the  accident  he  had  met  with  some  months 
before  while  out  riding  with  three  of  the  Americans 
who  were  now  calling  on  him.  There  was  the 
usual  preliminary  skirmish  of  politeness,  and  then 
followed  the  conversational  engagement.  It  lasted 
for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  and  except  for  the  fact 
that  during  its  progress  one  of  my  compatriots  de- 
veloped a  headache  and  I  became  temporarily  deaf, 
it  was  no  doubt  a  draw.  Don  Pedro  told  his 
story,  which  began  with  the  pedigree  and  biography 
of  the  horse  that  had  thrown  him,  the  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  that  had  led  up  to  his  riding 
him  instead  of  some  other  horse,  the  nature  of  the 
weather  on  that  historical  morning,  the  condition 
of  the  roads,  the  various  careless  happy  thoughts 
and  remarks  he  had  indulged  in  just  before  the 
fatal  moment,  the  fatal  moment  itself,  the  sensa- 
tions and   reflections  of  a  Mexican   gentleman   on 

139 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

returning  to  consciousness  after  a  bump  on  the 
head 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  anyone  except 
me  (who  had  not  been  present  at  the  accident)  was 
listening  to  Don  Pedro  or  paying  the  slightest  at- 
tention to  him.  His  wife,  with  hands  outstretched 
and  flung  in  the  air,  with  eyes  now  rolling,  now 
flashing,  was  screaming  her  version;  just  how  she 
had  spent  her  time  between  the  departure  of  the 
blithesome  cavalcade  and  its  unexpected  appearance 
with  a  litter  in  its  midst;  what  she  had  unsuspect- 
ingly remarked  to  her  daughter  and  one  of  the 
servants  when  first  she  descried  it;  what  they  had 
respectively  replied ;  what  she  did  next,  and  what 
she  did  after  that  and  the  sensations  of  a  Mexican 
lady  on  hearing  that  her  husband  had  been  thrown 
from  his  horse  and  rendered  unconscious 

My  three  American  friends,  who  live  in  Mexico 
and  have  learned  how  to  project  themselves  into 
the  spirit  of  every  social  situation,  were  meeting  the 
demands  of  the  moment  by  bellowing  their  more 
or  less  fictitious  tales,  and  in  the  narrow  street  be- 
yond the  long  open  windows,  the  train  we  had 
just  left  (it  was  so  near  we  could  have  leaned  out 
and  touched  it)  was  making  wholly  unsuccessful 
efforts  to  return  to  Barranca.    The  whistle  and  bell 

140 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

of  the  engine  shrieked  and  rang  incessantly,  the 
cars  separated  in  an  agony  of  noise  and  then  slam- 
banged  together  again  and  again  and  again.  Most 
of  the  time  the  engine  was  in  front  of  the  house 
sending  a  geyser  of  hoarse  steam  through  one  of 
the  sala  window-s.  When  the  six  simultaneous 
narratives  were  nearing  their  climaxes  and  the  train 
was  at  its  loudest,  a  little  girl  came  into  the  room, 
sat  down  at  the  piano,  and  began  to  practice  scales, 
a  little  boy  appeared  from  the  patio  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  the  phonograph  play  the  sextette 
from  "  Lucia,"  as  rendered  by  four  trombones  and 
two  cornets,  and  the  canary  bird  went  abruptly  and 
completely  mad.  Most  of  this  lasted  without  sur- 
cease for  an  hour  and  a  quarter.  The  last  fifteen 
minutes  we  spent  in  saying  good-by.  The  senora 
kissed  the  two  ladies  before  we  left  the  sala,  and 
again  at  the  door.  They  were  more  than  ordinarily 
convinced  that  they  had  contracted  lead-poisoning. 
Then  we  strolled  away  to  the  house  of  Don  Juan 
Valera,  where  we  were  received  by  Don  Juan's  wife 
and  five  enchanting  children,  his  mother  who  had 
come  over  from  a  neighboring  village  to  cook  her 
son's  birthday  dinner  (she  was  ninety-three  and  as 
bald  as  an  egg),  and  an  orchestra  of  fourteen  pieces. 
No  doubt  one  could  become  hardened  to  sitting 

141 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

all  morning  at  one  end  of  a  parlor,  gravely  listen- 
ing to  the  waltzes  and  two-steps  of  an  orchestra 
at  the  other,  and  after  every  selection  even  more 
gravely  adjourning  with  one's  host  and  the  musi- 
cians to  the  dining  room  for  a  glass  of  cognac. 
But  there  is  about  the  first  morning  spent  in  this 
fashion  a  ghastly  charm.  As  the  ladies  did  not  take 
cognac,  upon  them  devolved  the  less  invigorating 
task  of  preserving  unbroken  during  our  frequent 
absences  the  thread  of  conversation,  and  I  groveled 
before  them  in  admiration  every  time  I  returned 
and  found  that  the  children  and  the  weather  as 
topics  had  not  even  begun  to  be  exhausted.  There 
was  all  the  more  to  say  about  the  weather  by  reason 
of  the  fact  that  there  had  been  recently  so  little  of 
it — rain  had  refused  to  fall  for  weeks  and  the 
coffee  trees,  laden  with  buds,  were  unable  to  flower. 
With  the  crop  in  imminent  peril — with  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars  ready  to  dry  up  and  blow 
away  all  around  us — we  could  still  experience  a  kind 
of  social  gratitude  for  the  calamitj^  and  toward 
noon  I  began  to  feel  that  among  the  many  kindly 
acts  of  our  host,  his  having  had  in  all,  six  children 
instead  of  only  one  or  two  was  perhaps  the  kind- 
liest. Race  suicide  on  his  part  would  have  been 
not    only   race   suicide   but   conversational   murder. 

142 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

The  eldest  boy  was  at  a  Southern  school  in  the 
United  States,  and  (this,  however,  did  not  emerge 
during  our  visit;  Don  Juan  perhaps  did  not  know 
of  it)  he  had  on  arriving,  before  the  school  opened, 
much  to  his  amazement,  been  refused  admittance, 
on  account  of  his  fine,  dark  skin  (grandmamma  was 
an  Indian),  to  one  hotel  after  another.  The  ex- 
planation of  the  person  in  charge  of  him  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  no  more  of  African  extraction 
than  were  the  elegant  young  hotel  clerks  themselves, 
was  unproductive  of  results. 

"  I  don't  care  what  he  is — he  isn't  white,"  was 
their  unanimous  verdict,  and  he  found  refuge  at 
last  in  an  obscure  boarding  house.  But  apparently 
he  had  lived  down  prejudice  even  in  the  South,  for 
while  Don  Juan  was  proud  of  the  progress  he  had 
made  in  his  studies,  he  was  positively  vain  of  his 
success  with  the  ladies,  although  still  somewhat  at 
a  loss  to  account  for  the  state  of  affairs  that  ren- 
dered such  admitted  conquests  possible.  As  mod- 
estly as  he  could  he  conveyed  to  us  that  the  girls 
were  "  crazy  "  about  Juanito,  hastening  to  declare, 
as  a  parent  should,  that  for  his  part  he  did  not  see 
precisely  why. 

"  No  doubt  it  is  because  Juanito  is  a  novelty  to 
them,"  he    sought   to   explain.      "  You    know    how 

143 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

women  are;  always  attracted  by  something  new. 
On  Sunday  afternoons  they  take  long  walks  with 
him — but  all  alone,  all  alone.  No  mother,  father, 
brother — no  one.  And  afterwards  they  invite  him 
in  to  supper.  But  nothing  wrong — nothing  wrong  " 
(Juanito  was  not  quite  fifteen),  he  added,  closing; 
his  eyes  and  solemnly  waving  his  finger  in  front  of 
his  face. 

The  dinner  (it  was  announced  at  last)  was  a 
revelation  in  the  possibilities  of  Mexican  cooking, 
and  although  the  multitude  of  dishes  were  not  new 
to  me  their  savor  was.  Grandmamma  cooked  from 
recipes  ("muy,  muy  antiguas,"  they  were)  whose 
origins  had  been  obscured  by  subsequent  history, 
and  almost  a  century  had  in  no  way  impaired  her 
sense  of  taste  or  her  lightness  of  touch.  Even  her 
tortillas  were  delicious,  and  a  tortilla  is  a  melan- 
choly form  of  nourishment.  The  mole  (a  turkey 
soaked  in  a  rich^  mahogany-colored  sauce,  composed 
of  from  twenty  to  half  a  hundred  different  in- 
gredients) was  of  course  the  dinner's  climax — it 
always  is — and  afterwards,  as  the  old  lady  did  not 
come  to  the  table,  we  all  went  to  the  kitchen  to 
congratulate  her  and  shake  her  hand  while  the  maids 
who  had  been  helping  her  looked  on  in  ecstasy. 

"  She  doesn't  come  to  the  table  because  she  has 

144 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

only  one  tooth,"  her  son  explained  as  he  gently 
caused  her  to  display  it,  much  as  one  exhibits  the 
dental  deficiencies  of  an  old  and  well-beloved  horse, 
"  and  on  top  there  is  no  hair — none  at  all.  You 
see — it's  all  bare,  just  like  parchment.  She's  a  won- 
derful woman,"  he  declared,  as  he  slid  his  finger 
back  and  forth  on  her  skull. 

Then  we  were  shown  the  house ;  even — before,  we 
realized  what  was  about  to  happen — the  new  bath- 
room, to  whose  undoubted  conveniences  Don  Juan 
artlessly  called  out  attention,  and  after  examining 
separately  every  plant  in  the  patio,  we  returned  to 
the  sala,  where  the  darling  weather  proceeded  al- 
most immediately  to  save  not  only  the  situation  but 
the  coflfee  crop.  A  series  of  cloud-bursts  kept  us  all 
at  the  open  windows  fascinated,  as  for  some  reason 
one  always  is  by  the  hissing  of  rain  and  the  violent 
activities  of  tin  waterspouts,  until  their  sudden 
cessation  enabled  us  to  stroll  out,  accompanied  by 
Don  Juan  and  the  children,  to  visit  the  town's  fa- 
mous gardens  for  growing  violets,  azaleas,  cimelias, 
roses,  and  gardenias  for  the  market.  There  did  not 
seem  to  be  many  of  them,  but  it  was  only  later, 
when  Don  Pedro  and  his  wife  came  to  the  train 
with  their  arms  full,  that  we  knew  why. 

In  two  hours  the  coffee  had  flowered,  and  as  the 

145 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

train  lurched  back  to  Barranca  in  the  green,  un- 
canny, storm-washed  light,  through  acres  and  acres 
and  acres  of  white  coffee  blossoms,  it  was  difficult 
not  to  believe  that  there  had  been  in  the  tropics  a 
fall  of  snow. 


IX 


IT  is  significant  that  the  most  entertaining  as  well 
as  the  most  essentially  true  book  on  Mexico 
that  I  have  been  able  to  find  was  written  dur- 
ing the  years  1840  and  1841,  by  Madame  Calderon 
de  la  Barca.  Although  from  this  name  one  does 
not,  perhaps,  at  once  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  writer  was  Scotch,  the  fact  that  she  was  be- 
comes somewhat  more  credible  on  discovering  her 
to  have  been  born  "  Ingalls."  She  was,  in  a  word, 
the  wife  of  the  first  minister  Spain  condescended 
to  send  to  Mexico  after  that  dissatisfied  country 
had,  in  the  time-honored  phrase,  "  thrown  oH  the 
yoke,"  and  she  must  have  been  a  most  intelligent 
and  charming  young  person. 

Of  course,  I  have  spent  far  too  much  time  in  and 
about  Boston  not  to  have  observed  that  delightful 
books  are  often  written  by  odious  women,  and  what 
persuades  me  that  my  belief  in  IVIadame  Calderon's 
charm  is  not  misplaced  is  the  fact  that  she  never 
knew  she  was  writing  a  book  at  all.  "  It  consists 
of  letters  written   to   the  members  of  her   family, 

147 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  really  not  intended  originally  —  however  in- 
credible the  assertion — for  publication,"  says  Pres- 
cott  the  historian,  in  his  short  preface  to  the  vol- 
ume. It  was  Prescott  who  urged  her  to  print  them, 
but  even  he  could  not  induce  her  actually  to  reveal 
her  name.  I  say  "  actually,"  as  she  resorted  on 
the  title  page  to  the  quaint  form  of  anonymity 
that  consisted  of  signing  herself  "  Madame  C — 
de  la  B — ,"  a  proceeding  always  suggestive  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  two-hundred-pound  so- 
prano of  Mozart  opera  holds  a  minute,  black 
velvet  mask  a  foot  and  a  half  away  from  her 
face  and  instantly  becomes  invisible  to  the  naked 
eye. 

But  what  strikes  me  as  significant  when  I 
open  Madame  Calderon's  letters  at  random  and 
read  a  page  or  two  almost  anywhere  is  that,  while 
the  book  has  long  since  been  out  of  print,  it  is 
essentially  not  out  of  date.  For  although  in  sixty- 
six  years  many  historical  things  have  happened 
in  Mexico  —  revolutions,  sudden  and  astonishing 
changes  of  government,  the  complete  and  wonder- 
ful disestablishment  of  the  Church,  foreign  invasions 
both  bloody  and  peaceful  —  one  may  still  read 
Madame  Calderon  and  verify  much  that  she  says 
simply  by  glancing  out  of  the  window.    Momentous 

148 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

changes  have  without  doubt  taken  place:  there  are 
now  freedom  of  religious  belief  and  facilities  for 
acquiring  an  education,  where  in  her  time  there  was 
only  a  priest  with  hell  in  one  hand  and  a  yawning 
purse  in  the  other ;  there  now  are  railways  and  an 
excellent  post  and  telegraph  service,  where  formerly 
there  were,  so  to  speak,  nothing  but  brigands.  The 
parents  of  an  Englishwoman  I  know  in  Mexico, 
who  as  a  young  bride  and  groom  landed  at  Vera 
Cruz  just  sixty  years  ago,  were  held  up  and  robbed 
three  times  during  their  journey  from  the  coast  to 
Barranca.  They  were  in  a  coach  with  other  passen- 
gers; and  the  first  bandits  they  encountered  took 
merely  their  money.  The  second  deprived  them  of 
their  \vatches  and  jewelry,  but  the  third,  enraged 
at  finding  them  without  valuables  of  any  kind, 
stripped  everybody  —  including  the  driver  —  to  the 
skin.  Stark  naked,  the  coachload  for  eight  hours 
pursued  its  embarrassed  way  and  stark  naked  it 
drove  into  the  patio  of  the  Barranca  inn.  To-day 
in  Mexico  one  may  occasionally  be  held  up  on  the 
road,  just  as  one  may  be  held  up  in  Wyoming  or 
Vermont,  but  brigandage  as  a  lucrative  career  for 
young  men  of  courage  has  been  suppressed.  Madame 
Calderon  did  not  seem  to  tiiink  it  at  all  unlikely 
that  the  masked  bandits  who  separated  ladies  from 

149 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

their  jewels  on  the  way  home  from  a  ball  at  three 
in  the  morning  were  the  dashing  army  officers  with 
whom  the  ladies  had  been  dancing  and  flirting  a 
short  time  before. 

Those  days  are  passed,  and  yet  Mexico  always 
seems  to  me  very  much  as  it  was  when  the  ob- 
servant Scotchwoman  wrote  her  long  and  vivid  let- 
ters. There  have  been  "  events,"  and  reforms,  and 
innovations  that  unquestionably  have  had  their  in- 
fluence on  somebody,  but  the  great  masses  appear 
to  have  been  quite  uninfluenced.  Even  the  large 
towns — with  the  exception  of  the  City  of  Mexico 
and  Guadalajara,  both  of  which  seem  in  many  re- 
spects to  become  more  cosmopolitan  every  week — 
may  still  be  recognized  from  Madame  Calderon's 
description  of  them  and  their  inhabitants.  As  re- 
cently as  this  year  (1908)  it  was  impossible,  at 
the  best  hotel  in  Puebla  (a  capital  with  a  popu- 
lation of  at  least  a  hundred  thousand),  to  get 
breakfast,  if  one  was  obliged  to  leave  by  the  half- 
past-six  A.M.  train  for  Jalapa. 

"  It  is  not  the  custom  to  serve  breakfast  so  early," 
said  the  mozo,  who  was  arranging  my  bed  for  the 
night,  when  I  ordered  soft-boiled  eggs  and  choco- 
late to  be  sent  up  at  half  past  five  for  my  mother 
and  brother  and   me.      He   was  a  handsome   boy, 

150 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

shiverinp;  In  a  dark-brown  sarape  stamped  all  over 
with  white  horseshoes. 

"  But  my  God,  amigo  mio!  "  I  protested,  "  why 
hn't  it  the  custom?  Before  a  long  journey  even 
the  most  spiritual  of  us  must  fortify  ourselves." 

"  The  milkman  does  not  come  from  the  country 
until  six,"  he  then  explained,  "  and  the  cook  never 
lights  the  brasero  until  half  past.  Without  milk 
and  fire,  how  can  one  breakfast?  " 

To  a  person  of  resource  (I  am  a  person  of  re- 
source) such  a  state  of  affairs  is  immaterial.  For  at 
half  past  five  (with  the  ghastly  before  dawn  cheer- 
fulness that  some  of  us  at  last  painfully  acquire)  I 
was  making  my  toilet  with  one  hand  and,  on  two 
alcohol  lamps,  boiling  eggs  and  preparing  chocolate 
with  the  other — as  in  Mexico  I  had  done  innumer- 
able times  before.  But  for  the  uninitiated  and  the 
resourceless — the  American  traveler  in  Mexico  is 
usually  both — what  a  situation  ! 

A  railway — an  engineering  marvel  that  In  its  con- 
struction again  and  again  achieved  the  impossible — 
has  bisected  the  country  for  almost  thirty  years; 
but  I  know  many  adult  Mexicans  of  considerable 
Intelligence,  in  their  own  circumscribed,  tropical 
w^ay,  who  have  lived  all  their  lives  within  sixty  or 
seventy  miles  of  the  track  without  ever  having  seen 

151 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

it.  Sixty-six  years  ago  France  must  have  been  de- 
cidedly more  French,  and  Italy  must  have  been 
infinitely  more  Italian,  than  they  are  to-day,  yet 
Mexico  apparently  is  but  slightly  less  Mexican. 

From  Madame  Calderon,  and  from  her  only,  was 
I  able  to  learn  the  exact  religious  import  of  the  nine 
dances  (posadas,  they  are  called),  given  everywhere 
in  Mexico  just  before  Christmas.  I  knew  they  were 
given,  for  I  had  gone  to  them  and  enjoyed  myself, 
but  just  why  there  were  nine  of  them  and  just  why 
they  should  all  be  held  in  quick  succession  immedi- 
ately before  Christmas,  was  something  neither  my 
American  nor  my  Mexican  acquaintances — in  spite 
of  their  polite  efforts  to  recollect  a  pretty  legend, 
they  had  forgotten  —  ever  made  altogether  clear. 
Madame  Calderon,  however,  was  more  satisfactory, 
and  I  can  do  no  better  than  quote  her:  "  This  is  the 
last  night  of  what  are  called  the  Posadas,"  she 
writes,  "  a  curious  mixture  of  religion  and  amuse- 
ment, but  extremely  pretty.  The  meaning  is  this: 
At  the  time  that  the  decree  went  forth  from  Caesar 
Augustus  that  '  all  the  world  should  be  taxed,'  the 
Virgin  and  Joseph,  having  come  out  of  Galilee  to 
Judsea  to  be  inscribed  for  the  taxation,  found  Beth- 
lehem so  full  of  people  who  had  arrived  from  all 
parts  of  the  world   that  they  wandered  about  for 

152 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

nine  days  without  finding;  admittance  to  any  house 
or  tavern,  and  on  the  ninth  day  took  shelter  in  a 
manger,  where  the  Savior  was  born." 

"  Posada  "  means  an  inn  or  lodging  house,  and 
the  "  curious "  religious  preliminaries  to  the  nine 
dancing  parties  called  "  posadas  "  are  all  symbolical 
of  the  efforts  of  Joseph  and  Mary  to  find  a  resting 
place  for  the  night.  The  posada  Madame  Calderon 
describes  took  place  in  a  private  house  in  the  City 
of  Mexico  more  than  half  a  century  ago;  the  last 
one  I  went  to  was  held  less  than  a  year  ago  in  the 
casino  of  a  small  town  in  the  tierra  templada.  But 
except  for  some  slight  historical  differences,  either 
one  might  have  been  the  other.  "  We  went  to  the 
Marquesa's  at  eight  o'clock,  and  about  nine  the 
ceremony  commenced,"  writes  Madame  Calderon. 
And  in  this  sentence  lurks,  perhaps,  the  greatest  dif- 
ference. For  at  the  casino  of  Barranca  I  found  no 
marquesas.  Most  of  the  pure-blooded  Spaniards  one 
meets  in  Mexico  are  either  priests  or  grocers,  and  if 
any  of  them  is  a  marques — as  is  very  possible — he 
has  long  ago  tactfully  pretended  to  forget  it. 

The  casino  at  Barranca  in  itself  throws  some  light 

on  Mexican  character.     For  a  small  to^\•n  it  is  an 

elaborate  structure — built  about  an  impressive  patio, 

with  two  large  ballrooms  and  a  supper  room  upstairs 

11  153 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  smaller  rooms  below  for  cards  and  billiard 
tables.  In  England  or  in  the  United  States  these 
ground-floor  apartments  would  be  adequately  fur- 
nished, supplied  with  periodicals  and  newspapers,  re- 
garded as  a  man's  club  and  used  as  such.  But  in 
Mexico,  a  club,  as  we  understand  such  an  institu- 
tion, seems,  outside  of  the  capital,  to  make  little  ap- 
peal. The  satisfaction  that  Brown  and  Robinson 
extract  from  reading  their  evening  paper  and  sip- 
ping their  whisky-and-soda  under  a  roof  whose 
shelter  may  not  be  sought  by  Smith  and  Jones,  is  a 
satisfaction  the  Mexican  in  general  has  yet  to  dis- 
cover. The  reading  room  in  the  casino  of  Barranca 
contains  nothing  to  read,  the  billiard  tables  are 
rarely  played  upon,  and  the  card  room  is  not  often 
occupied  except  on  the  night  of  a  dance,  when  a 
few  middle-aged  men  whose  wives  and  daughters 
are  upstairs  in  the  ballroom  endeavor  to  keep  them- 
selves awake  over  a  mild  game  of  poker.  The  truth 
is  that  in  Mexico  the  real  clubs  are  the  plaza  and 
the  most  centrally  situated  cafe.  It  is  there  that  one 
goes  to  read  the  paper,  to  smoke  a  cigar,  to  have 
one's  boots  polished,  to  sit  awhile  on  a  bench  and 
talk  to  friends — to  take  a  drink  or  have  a  game  of 
cards  or  billiards.  It  is  there  and  not  in  the  cold, 
dreary  rooms  of  the  casino,  that  the  gentlemen  of 

154 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Barranca  may  usually  be  found  when,  for  the  mo- 
ment, they  haven't  anything  in  particular  to  do. 
The  plaza  and  the  cafe  are  for  every  day;  the  casi- 
no is  for  occasions. 

The  greatest  occasions  are  the  nine  posadas,  all  of 
which  are  exactly  alike  with  the  exception  of  the 
last,  when  a  piiiata  (the  grab-bag  of  one's  childhood 
days)  is  suspended  from  the  ceiling  and  finally  in- 
duced to  disgorge  its  treasures  by  a  blindfolded 
young  lady,  who  succeeds  in  demolishing  it  with  a 
cane.  On  arriving,  one  is  graciously  received  by  an 
appallingly  powdered  reception  committee,  and  when 
all  the  guests  have  assembled,  partners  are  chosen, 
a  procession  is  formed,  everyone  is  given  a  lighted 
candle,  the  incandescent  lamps  are  extinguished  and, 
singing  verse  after  verse  that  tells  of  the  wanderings 
of  Joseph  and  Mary,  the  party  marches  around  and 
around  the  upper  floor  of  the  patio.  When  the  night 
is  clear  and  there  is  a  moon,  as  happened  to  be  the 
case  at  the  last  posada  I  went  to,  the  performance, 
as  Madame  Calderon  says,  is  "  exceedingly  pretty." 
Finally  the  procession  stops  in  front  of  a  closed  door 
and  sings,  on  the  part  of  the  Holy  Family,  a  request 
for  admittance.  In  an  interesting  change  of  key,  a 
chorus  of  voices  behind  the  door  refuses  to  unlock. 
Mary  and  Joseph  reply  (always  in  song)   that  the 

155 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

night  is  cold  and  dark — the  wind  blows  hard.  Again 
they  ask  for  shelter,  and  again  they  are  refused. 
At  this,  Mary  in  a  last  verse  reveals  the  fact  that 
she  is  the  Queen  of  Heaven — whereupon  the  door  is 
instantly  opened  and  the  procession  enters  and  dis- 
bands; not,  however,  before  everyone  has  kissed  a 
little  image  of  the  Infant  Jesus  reposing  on  a  bed 
of  leaves  and  flowers.  After  this  ceremony — which 
no  one  seems  to  take  at  all  seriously — the  orchestra 
strikes  up  a  two-step  and  the  dance  begins.  Precisely 
this  happens  every  evening — Sunday  is  an  exception 
— for  nine  nights  before  Christmas,  all  over  Mexico. 

"Are  there  any  girls  you  would  like  to  meet?" 
inquired  a  Mexican  friend  of  mine  one  evening, 
after  Joseph  and  Mary  had  been  admitted  and  the 
first  dance  was  just  beginning. 

"  Why,  yes — introduce  me  to  the  tall  girl  in  blue," 
I  answered,  indicating  an  aristocratic  young  person 
whose  gown  had  rue  de  la  Paix  written  all  over  it 
and  who,  in  the  matter  of  powder,  combined  Mexi- 
can quantity  with  Parisian  art. 

"  Oh — she's  the  governor's  daughter,"  my  friend 
hesitated. 

"  Well,  I  care  not  who  makes  the  daughters  of 
a  country,  if  I  can  make  their  acquaintance,"  I  at- 
tempted to  say  in  Spanish.     It  ended  with  my  dan- 

156 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

cing  several  times  with  her,  and  I  was  much  inter- 
ested to  note  what  an  isolated  and  rather  somber 
evening  she  spent.  She  was  agreeable  and  beauti- 
fully dressed — but  she  was  the  governor's  daughter, 
and  the  local  youths  for  that  reason  were  afraid  of 
her  and  admired  her  at  a  distance.  At  an  early  hour 
she  went  home  with  her  brother.  He  was  the  only 
person  present  in  evening  dress,  and  when  he  re- 
turned after  escorting  his  sister  home,  he  wore  a 
frock  coat.  I  have  never  been  able  to  decide  whether 
he  made  the  change  because  he  felt  uncomfortable 
himself  or  because  he  wished  to  put  the  rest  of  us 
at  our  ease. 


X 


ONCE,  in  the  United  States  I  had  to  wait  five 
hours  for  a  train  in  a  large  prohibition  town 
— a  town  that  for  many  years  has  been  a 
bright  jewel  in  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union's  crown  of  glory.  As  I  was  ignorant  of  this 
fact  at  the  time,  I  asked  one  of  the  intellectual-look- 
ing waitresses  at  the  hotel  where  I  was  eating  my 
luncheon  to  bring  me  a  bottle  of  beer.  From  the 
manner  in  which  she  snubbed  me,  I  supposed  the 
fair,  pure  city  not  only  did  not  tolerate  beer,  but  did 
not  tolerate  even  the  mention  of  beer.  After  lunch- 
eon, while  I  was  sitting  on  the  hotel  piazza,  I  noticed 
that  a  great  many  men  darted  into  an  alley  just 
opposite,  passed  through  a  doorway  and  never  re- 
turned. As  the  hour  grew  later  their  numbers  in- 
creased until  the  door  was  held  open  by  an  almost 
continuous  stream.  At  times  the  room  beyond  the 
door  apparently  became  so  crowded  that  the  men  in 
the  alley  would  form  a  long  queue  and  patiently 
await  their  turn  to  enter.  Thinking  it  might  be  a 
show  of  some  sort,  I  made  inquiries  of  a  policeman, 

158 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

who,  much  amused  at  my  innocence,  replied : 
"  Didn't  you  ever  see  a  man  take  a  drink  before?  " 
Hundreds  of  men  went  in  at  the  door  during  the 
afternoon  and  emerged,  it  seemed,  from  a  smug- 
looking  grocery  store  on  another  street.  And  every- 
body was  satisfied :  the  good  ladies  of  the  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance  Union,  who  apparently  can 
always  be  appeased  by  a  bit  of  legislation;  the  in- 
habitants of  the  town,  who  drank  as  deep  and  as 
often  as  they  pleased.  I  was  young  at  the  time,  and 
although  I  have  since  discovered  with  much  amuse- 
ment and  some  gratification  that  the  law  which  pre- 
vents a  man  from  obtaining  a  drink,  when  he  really 
wants  one,  has  yet  to  be  devised,  the  incident  made 
a  lasting  impression  on  me.  I  often  recall  my  after- 
noon in  the  State  of  Maine,  the  alley,  the  little  door, 
the  stream  of  men  of  every  station  in  life. 

In  Mexico  I  have  recalled  it  time  and  again,  as 
I  gradually  learned  something  about  the  theoretical 
and  the  actual  relations  between  the  state  and  the 
Church.  For  there  is,  on  the  one  hand,  precisely  the 
same  stern  attitude  of  the  state  toward  religion 
(w^hich  in  Mexico  really  means  Roman  Cathol- 
icism), and  on  the  other  the  same  official  wink.  In 
1859  the  great  Benito  Juarez  proclaimed  his  highly 
desirable   Reform   Laws,    and   in   so    doing   simply 

159 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

wiped  from  the  slate  the  various  complications  that 
had  kept  the  clerical  party  and  the  liberal  party, 
from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  in  a  state 
of  bloody  war  for  fifty  years.  At  one  time  every 
public  institution  in  Mexico  was  owned  and  man- 
aged by  the  Church.  Every  hospital,  every  school, 
every  asylum  was  church  property.  Even  some  of 
the  theaters  were  of  religious  origin.  So  great  a 
portion  of  the  country's  wealth  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  priests  that  trade  of  all  kinds  was  seriously  hin- 
dered. To  some  extent  this  state  of  affairs  was  alle- 
viated even  before  the  sweeping  proclamation  of 
Juarez  in  1859,  but  after  it  the  claws  of  the  Church 
in  Mexico  seemed  to  be  effectually  extracted  for  all 
time.  All  the  remaining  monastic  orders  were  dis- 
established by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  and  church  prop- 
erty became  national  property.  The  cathedrals  and 
churches  are  now  owned  by  the  state  and  lent,  so 
to  speak,  to  the  Church  for  religious  purposes.  You 
can't,  according  to  the  law,  become  a  monk  or  a  nun 
in  Mexico,  even  if  you  wish  to;  church  bells  may 
not  ring  for  more  than  one  minute  (I  think  it  is 
one  minute)  at  a  time,  and  priests  may  not  either 
wear,  on  the  streets,  a  distinctively  clerical  costume 
or,  in  a  religious  capacity,  accompany  a  funeral  to 
the  cemetery.      (I   confess  that,  although  I  believe 

160 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

enthusiastically  in  every  measure,  however  brutal, 
that  effectively  restrains  the  Lord's  ambassadors 
from  meddling  in  secular  affairs,  I  have  never  been 
able  to  see  the  point  of  prohibiting  a  religious  cere- 
mony at  a  grave.)  Once  upon  a  time  an  English 
bishop  who  disembarked  at  Vera  Cruz  in  the  hu- 
morous costume  to  which  his  position  in  England 
entitled  him,  was,  with  a  considerable  flourish  of 
trumpets,  promptly  arrested  and  compelled  to  change 
his  clothes.  The  laws  are  there ;  they  are  extremely 
explicit,  and  now  and  then,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
English  bishop,  they  are,  for  the  pacification  of  the 
rabidly  anticlerical,   noisily  enforced,   but 

The  President,  in  a  word,  is  a  person  of  great 
good  sense,  and  I  have  gathered  from  the  ultracleri- 
cal,  profoundly  monarchistic  remarks  of  my  friend 
Father  O'Neil,  who  of  course  detests  him,  that  in 
matters  ecclesiastical  he  is  inclined  to  let  the  letter 
of  the  law  take  care  of  itself.  Father  O'Neil  doesn't 
know  that  I  have  derived  any  such  impression  from 
our  long  and  interesting  talks  together,  and  I  have 
never  told  him. 

"Why  is  it  the  authorities  don't  arrest  you?" 
I  inquired  of  him  one  day  when  he  had  been  holding 
forth  on  the  indignities  the  Church  was  forever  suf- 
fering at  the  hands  of  the  Government.      For  he 

i6i 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

does  not  hesitate   to  appear  on   the  streets  in  the 
whole  paraphernalia. 

"  Ah,  they  will  some  day,"  he  hopefully  replied. 
And  it  was  Father  O'Neil  also  who  told  me  that 
there  were  to-day  between  thirty  and  forty  convents 
running  full  blast  in  the  City  of  Mexico  alone. 
That  they  are  is  against  the' law,  but,  after  all,  the 
channels  through  which  they  used  to  work  great 
harm  have  been  closed,  and  there  are  a  number  of 
persons  in  every  community  of  human  beings  who 
are  able  to  satisfy  their  temperamental  needs — to  en- 
joy life — only  by  walling  themselves  up  with  others 
similarly  disposed  and  wearing  garments  of  a  par- 
ticular shape  and  fabric.  Once  in  so  often  the  anti- 
clericals  explode  quite  in  the  manner  of  the  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance  Union  in  the  United  States, 
declare  that  these  illicit  survivals  must  go,  that  such 
things  must  not  be,  and  compel  the  police  to  make  a 
raid.  But  the  police,  it  is  said,  never  discover  any- 
thing on  these  expeditions  beyond  some  demure 
ladies  in  ordinary  dress,  who  do  not  appear  to  under- 
stand the  sudden  intrusion  and  who  declare  the  place 
to  be  a  poor  but  honest  boarding  house.  When  the 
police  retire,  the  ladies  get  their  veils  and  habits 
from  the  cellar  where  they  have  hidden  them,  put 
them  on,  and  proceed  with  the  life  meditative,  as 

162 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

before.  That  they  are  never  taken  unawares, 
Father  O'Neil  assures  me,  is  due  to  the  piety  of 
the  Senora  Carmen  Rubio  de  Diaz,  the  President's 
wife. 

All  of  which  helps  one  to  believe  that  the  Presi- 
dent is  a  statesman  and  a  diplomat — that  he  does 
not  care  if  people  swim,  as  long  as  they  do  not  go 
too  near  the  water.  And  that  to  be  a  successful 
president  in  Mexico  is  a  task  of  considerable  diffi- 
culty might  be  inferred  from  a  trivial  incident  which 
took  place  some  years  ago.  In  receiving  new  envoys 
from  foreign  countries  the  President  is  invariably 
happy  in  the  phrasing  of  his  short  speech  of  wel- 
come— which,  perhaps,  does  not  seem  altogether  re- 
markable when  one  learns  that  he  is  always  fur- 
nished with  a  copy  of  the  newly  arrived  diplomat's 
extemporaneous  remarks  a  week  before  they  are  de- 
livered. On  one  occasion  a  foreign  minister  mis- 
guidedly  undertook  to  improve  upon  his  discourse 
between  the  time  it  had  been  submitted  and  approved 
and  the  hour  at  which  he  was  officially  received. 
With  the  best  intentions  he  inserted  several  things 
that  the  President,  who  is  distinctly  "  onto  his  job," 
would  have  quietly  deleted  had  he  seen  them.  The 
particular  sentence  that  caused  trouble  was  one  in 
which  the  unsuspecting  envoy   invoked  God   to  be 

163 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

prodigal  of  His  blessings  upon  Don  Porfirio's  dis- 
tinguished head.  The  anticlerical  element — it  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  party — was  immediately  in- 
censed. It  has  a  strong  prejudice  against  God,  and 
of  the  fact  that  the  President  had,  as  it  were,  offi- 
cially recognized  Him,  it  endeavored  to  make  a 
political  issue.  The  President  was  much  annoyed 
by  the  affair,  and  the  diplomat  horrified.  It  has 
not  happened  again. 

Father  O'Neil  is  an  American  by  way  (on  the 
part  of  his  grandparents)  of  Ireland;  but  for  many 
years  he  has  been  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  Mex- 
ico, and  he  is  one  of  those  baffling,  rather  fascinating 
Roman  Catholic  enigmas  that  I  have  grown  ac- 
customed to  meeting  in  lonely,  far-away  places.  He 
is  forty  years  old ;  a  person  of  education,  cultivated 
tastes,  and  great  charm  of  manner.  For  years  he 
was  priest  of  a  fever-stricken  parish  on  the  Isthmus 
of  Tehuantepec  until  at  last  he  got  yellow  fever 
himself  and  was  obliged,  in  order  to  remain  alive, 
to  seek  a  higher  altitude.  When  I  knew  him  he 
was  filling  (at  a  salary  of  three  hundred  dollars  a 
year)  a  quaint  position  in  an  isolated  spot  with  a 
queer  little  history. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  some  Spanish  monks 
founded  a  monastery  in  a  very  beautiful  part  of  the 

164 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

great  Mexican  plateau.  The  monastery  lasted — as 
an  institution — for  just  a  hundred  years,  at  the  end 
of  which  time,  for  reasons  that  do  not  appear  in  the 
records  of  the  place,  all  the  monks,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one,  set  sail  for  Spain.  Those  who  left 
divided  the  money  among  them ;  the  one  who  re- 
mained received  the  buildings  and  the  land.  He,  by 
the  Pope's  dispensation,  was  permitted  to  marry, 
which  he  straightway  did  and  begat  a  large  family. 
His  descendants  have  always  owned  the  estate,  and 
although  the  present  members  of  the  family  do  not 
live  there,  they  still  observe  the  wishes  of  the  original 
owner  by  perpetually  having  a  priest — a  sort  of 
family  chaplain — in  residence.  When  I  met  Father 
O'Neil,  he  was  the  chaplain.  His  entire  duties  con- 
sisted of  saying  eleven  low  masses  a  month  (why 
eleven  he  did  not  know,  except  that  this  number 
had  been  stipulated  for  in  the  will  of  the  late  pos- 
sessor) and  taking  care  of  the  exquisite  old  vest- 
ments and  gold  service  that  dated  from  the  place's 
founding.  Very  few  persons  ever  went  to  the 
masses,  and  he  confided  in  me  that  when  absolutely 
no  one  was  present  he  did  not  even  pretend  to  say 
them.  An  agreeable  man,  a  man  of  ability,  fond  of 
conversation,  companionship,  and  good  living. 
"  What  fanatical  zeal  he  must  have,"  I  at  first 

165 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

thought,  "  in  order  to  exile  himself  to  a  locality  that, 
however  beautiful,  is  absolutely  deficient  in  every- 
thing he  so  greatly  enjoys,"  There  were  weeks  at 
a  stretch  when  he  had  no  one  to  speak  to  but  his 
mozo  or  the  country  folk  who  occasionally  dropped 
in  for  the  purpose  of  ascending  the  monastery's 
sacred  stairs  on  their  knees.  Although  interested 
in  books  and  an  acute  critic  of  them,  he  had  literally 
none. 

"  On  three  hundred  a  year  one's  library  grows 
slowly,"  he  once  remarked  to  me.  But  as  I  came  to 
know  him  better  I  discovered  with  amazement  that 
he  was  not  only  not  a  devout  man — he  was  one  of 
the  most  essentially,  innately  irreligious  persons  I 
have  ever  met.  The  religious  temperament  and 
point  of  view — especially  the  Christian-religious 
point  of  view — bored  him  indescribably,  and  he 
usually  spoke  to  me  of  his  activities  as  a  priest  as  if 
they  were  some  sort  of  a  tedious  necessity.  I  saw 
him  every  few  days  for  a  whole  winter,  and  in  his 
long,  cool,  bare  sala,  adorned  only  with  some  of  the 
monastic  relics  and  a  portrait  of  the  monk  who  had 
remained  in  Mexico  and  founded  the  family,  we  dis- 
cussed many  things — but  I  never  could  manage  to 
maintain  a  satisfactory  discussion  on  the  subject  of 
him.     When,   for  instance  he  would,   in  the  most 

1 66 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

casual  tone  imaginable,  exclaim:  "Oh,  by  the  way, 
don't  write  up  any  of  those  yarns  I  told  you  the 
other  evening,  as  I  got  them  all  in  the  confessional," 
there  were  several  leading  questions  I  could  have 
asked.  For  the  fact  that  he  could  be  amusing  with 
the  secrets  of  the  confessional  jarred  even  on  me. 
But  I  never  did.  Once  when  I  inquired  if  some- 
thing or  other  had  not  surprised  him,  he  replied: 
"  My  dear  boy,  I  have  belonged  to  three  exceedingly 
illuminating  professions:  journalism,  the  law,  and 
the  Church;  I  am  never  surprised."  Why  had  he 
left  the  first  two,  in  either  of  which  one  could  easily 
imagine  him  successful  and  happy,  for  the  third, 
where  he  was  neither  one  nor  the  other  ?  And  why 
was  he  buried  alive  in  the  interior  of  Mexico,  en- 
deavoring to  exist  on  three  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
when  he  loved  the  world  and  candidly  admitted 
that  he  enjoyed  few  things  as  much  as  he  enjoyed 
spending  money?  I  somehow  hope  I  shall  never 
find  out. 

Late  one  afternoon,  when  he  was  walking  part 
of  the  way  home  with  me,  he  stopped  to  have  his 
hand  kissed  by  an  old  Indian  woman  who  kept  a 
small  cantina  by  the  roadside.  Dona  Rosario  in- 
vited us  to  have  a  drink  at  her  expense,  but  insisted 
on  serving  it  in  a  small  inner  room,  rather  than  in 

167 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

the  cantina  proper,  where  half  a  dozen  laborers 
were  standing  at  the  bar. 

"  I  wouldn't  ask  the  padrecito  to  drink  with  such 
common  persons,"  she  explained. 

"  But  I  don't  mind,  Dona  Rosario,"  the  priest  as- 
sured her  with  a  laugh.  "  We're  all  made  of  the 
same  clay." 

"  So  are  cream  pitchers  and  slop-jars ;  but  they  are 
not  used  for  the  same  purposes,"  Dona  Rosario 
prettily  replied. 

"  Sometimes  they  are"  he  murmured  to  me  in 
English  as  he  swallowed  his  drink,  and  I've  often 
wondered  just  what  he  meant. 


XI 

WHAT  I  am  about  to  say  will  be  of  interest 
only  to  persons  who  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other are  on  the  verge  of  a  first  trip  to 
Mexico,  as  it  will  have  to  do  chiefly  with  bald  facts 
about  the  conditions  of  travel  in  the  republic — rail- 
way trains,  luggage,  cabs,  hotels,  restaurants  (there 
aren't  any),  baths,  beds,  bottled  water,  butter — any- 
thing indeed  that  occurs  to  me  as  relevant  to  the 
matter  of  travel.  I  know  beforehand  that  my  at- 
tempt to  make  a  few  practical,  sensible  remarks  on 
the  subject  will  prove  unsatisfactory — perhaps  ex- 
asperating. After  one  has  lived  in  Mexico  any 
length  of  time  one  completely  forgets  the  point  of 
view  of  persons  who  have  never  been  there.  So  if 
I  happen  to  leave  out  the  one  thing  dear  reader 
most  wishes  to  be  informed  upon,  I  humbly  hope  I 
may  be  forgiven ;  for  if  I  might  choose  between  writ- 
ing about  such  affairs  and  being  broken  on  the 
wheel,  I  should  immediately  inquire  the  nearest  way 
to  the  wheel.  Suggestions  as  to  routes  of  travel, 
excursions,  and  "  sights,"  I  omit  deliberately,  as  all 
12  169 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

the  Mexican  railways  publish  attractive,  illustrated 
folders  that  treat  of  these  with  much  greater  lu- 
cidity than  I  ever  hope  to  attain. 

Conventionally  speaking,  traveling  in  Mexico  is 
uncomfortable.  By  this  I  don't  mean  that  a  person 
in  ordinary  health  is  subjected  to  hardships,  but 
merely  that  trains  and  hotels  always  lack  the  pleas- 
ing frills  to  which  one  is  accustomed  in  the  United 
States  and  Europe.  A  train  is  a  means  of  trans- 
porting yourself  and  your  belongings  from  one  place 
to  another  and  nothing  else.  Americans — and  with 
reason — look  upon  their  best  trains  as  this  and  con- 
siderably more.  The  Mexican  cars  follow  the 
American  plan  of  a  middle  aisle  with  exits  at  either 
end,  and,  as  in  Europe,  are  usually  of  the  first,  sec- 
ond, and  third  class.  A  first-class  car  resembles  in 
every  respect  what  is  known  in  the  United  States  as 
"a  coach"  (as  distinguished  from  a  sleeping  and  a 
parlor  car) — even  to  its  squalor.  Furthermore,  as 
there  are  rarely  enough  of  them  they  are  almost 
always  crowded.  I  have  often  noticed  that  Mexi- 
cans, generally  speaking,  either  can  afford  to  travel 
first  class,  or  can't  afford  to  travel  second.  The 
second-class  car  is  therefore  sometimes  comparatively 
empty  and  endurable  when  the  other  two  are  neither. 
Even  after  buying  a  first-class  ticket  I  have  more 

170 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

than  once  found  it  worth  while  to  sit  in  ,a  second- 
class  car;  but  naturally  this  is  not  always  true. 
Second-class  cars  for  some  reason  are  gradually  be- 
ing abolished. 

In  many  of  the  larger  places — the  City  of  Mex- 
ico, Guadalajara,  Puebla,  Vera  Cruz — you  can  buy 
tickets  at  the  railway's  city  office  and  then  at  the 
station  check  luggage  at  any  time.  It  is  invariably 
a  saving  of  good  temper,  anxiety,  and  comfort  to  do 
so,  for  the  ticket  window  at  the  station  (surrounded 
by  a  dense  crowd  of  the  unwashed)  does  not  open 
until  half  an  hour  or  twenty  minutes  before  the 
train  leaves,  and  it  takes  longer  to  check  luggage  in 
Mexico  than  in  any  country  in  which  I  have 
traveled.  The  system,  in  its  final  results,  is  pre- 
cisely that  of  the  United  States;  the  things  are 
weighed,  one  is  charged  for  an  excess  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  on  every  first-class  ticket,  and  given 
in  some  cases  a  separate  cardboard  check  for  every 
piece,  and  in  others  a  printed,  filled-in  receipt  for 
all  of  them  on  a  slip  of  paper.  But  why  so  simple 
a  process  should  take  so  much  time  I  have  not  been 
able  to  learn.  Recently  in  Vera  Cruz  it  required  at 
the  station  of  the  Interoceanico  railway  three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour  and  the  combined  intellectual  and 
physical  efforts  of  two  clerks  and  three  cargadores 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

(working  hard  all  the  time)  to  furnish  me  with 
checks  for  six  trunks  and  several  smaller  pieces. 
Fortunately  I  had  gone  there  long  before  train  time 
and  was  the  only  passenger  in  the  station.  It  is  but 
fair  to  admit  that  there  was  a  slight  hitch  in  the 
proceedings — five  or  six  minutes — when  darkness 
overtook  us  before  the  electric  light  was  turned  on 
and  some  one  had  to  rush  out  and  buy  a  candle  in 
order  that  work  could  be  resumed  (this  in  one  of 
the  great  seaports  of  the  world!),  but  all  the  rest 
of  the  time  was  consumed  in  checking  the  trunks. 
For  each  trunk  they  seem  to  write  half  a  page  of 
memoranda  in  a  book,  pausing  now  and  then  to  lean 
back  and  look  at  the  ceiling  as  if  in  the  throes  of 
composing  a  sonnet.  All  things  considered,  it  is  well 
in  Mexico  to  allow  yourself  at  the  railway  station 
what  would  seem  in  other  countries  a  foolish  amount 
of  time. 

In  some  of  the  towns  most  visited  by  tourists  the 
trains  are  now  met  by  English-speaking  interpreters 
from  the  various  hotels,  who,  by  taking  charge  of 
the  checks  and  baggage,  make  the  arrival  and  de- 
parture of  even  persons  who  are  new  to  the  country 
and  speak  no  Spanish  a  simple  and  painless  matter. 
When  this  does  not  happen,  however,  you  may  put 
yourself  with  perfect  confidence  into  the  hands  of  a 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

licensed  cargador — a  licensed  cargador  being  a  porter 
with  a  numbered  brass  tag  suspended  about  his  neck 
on  a  string.  Outside  of  the  City  of  Mexico  I  have 
never  known  a  h'censed  cargador  who  was  not,  in 
at  least  the  practice  of  his  profession,  entirely  capa- 
ble and  honest.  He  will  carry  your  hand  bags  to  a 
cab,  or  in  places  where  there  are  no  cabs,  to  the 
street  car  that  invariably  passes  near  the  best  hotels, 
and  a  short  time  afterwards — if  you  have  intrusted 
him  with  your  checks — arrive  at  the  hotel  with  your 
trunks.  For  carrying  hand  bags  from  the  train  to 
the  cab  or  street,  twenty-five  centavos  Is  ample.  The 
charge  for  taking  trunks  from  the  station  to  the 
hotel  is  usually  fifty  centavos  apiece.  As  a  measure 
of  absolute  safetj-,  although  it  is  hardly  necessary, 
you  may  remove  a  cargador's  tag  from  his  neck  and 
keep  it  as  a  hostage  until  you  receive  your  trunks. 
A  cargador  with  a  license  is  for  all  reasons  prefer- 
able to  one  without.  Being  licensed  by  the  city 
government,  he  has  a  definite  status  which  he  hesi- 
tates to  imperil.  By  retaining  his  tag,  or  noting 
and  remembering  his  number,  you  have  an  infal- 
lible means  of  identifying  him  in  case  your  trunks 
should  fail  to  arrive.     But  they  always  do  arrive. 

Except    in    the   City   of    Mexico   you  are    rarely 
tempted  to  get  into  a  cab;  you  prefer  either  to  walk 


VIVA  MEXICO! 

or  to  make  use  of  the  street  cars  which  will  always 
take  you  anywhere  worth  going  to.  In  the  capital, 
however,  although  the  electric-car  service  is  excel- 
lent, cabs  seem  to  be  a  necessity.  They  are  of  two 
classes  and  the  cost  of  riding  in  them  is  fixed  by  law, 
but  unless  you  find  out  beforehand  from  some  one 
who  is  informed  upon  the  subject  exactly  how  much 
you  ought  to  pay,  the  cabman  will  demand  several 
times  his  legal  fare.  On  fete  days  and  Sundays,  and 
between  the  hours  of  midnight  and  six  in  the  morn- 
ing, the  fare  is  double. 

If  your  train  leaves  at  an  early  hour  in  the  morn- 
ing, you  cannot  get  breakfast  at  the  hotels;  coffee 
and  rolls,  or  pan  dulce — a  slightly  sweetened  cross 
between  bread  and  cake — is  usually  served  some- 
where in  the  station.  There  are  no  dining  cars ;  the 
train  instead  stops  at  decent  intervals  at  stations 
provided  with  clean  and  adequate  Chinese  restau- 
rants. Even  when  the  train  is  very  late  there  is  no 
need  of  being  hungry ;  at  almost  every  station  women 
and  girls  walk  up  and  down  the  platform  selling 
fruit,  pulque,  and  tortillas  covered  with  strange, 
smeary  condiments  that  taste  much  better  than  they 
look.  One  of  these  decorated  tortillas  and  a  glass 
of  pulque  may  not  exactly  satisfy  the  appetite,  but 
they  effectually  kill  it.      Pulque — a  thin   fluid  re- 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

sembling  water  that  has  been  poured  into  a  recep- 
tacle in  which  a  little  milk  had  been  carelessly  left — ■ 
tastes  like  a  kind  of  degenerate  buttermilk,  and  in 
the  middle  of  a  hot  journey  is  delicious  and  refresh- 
ing. It  is  derived  from  the  sap  of  the  maguey  plant 
and  is  often  spoken  of  as  "  the  national  drink."  This 
somehow  strikes  me  as  a  misnomer.  Pulque  is  cer- 
tainly peculiar  to  Mexico  and  on  the  highlands  it 
is  drunk  in  enormous  quantities.  But  in  the  tierra 
caliente  and  the  tierra  templada  where  maguey  does 
not  grow,  what  pulque  there  is  has  to  be  brought 
from  a  distance  and  is  neither  good  nor  very  popular. 
In  the  lowlands  fiery  derivatives  of  the  sugar  cane 
are  much  more  prevalent.  Although  I  have  had 
irrefutable  ocular  evidence  to  the  effect  that  pulque, 
when  drunk  in  sufficient  quantities,  is  extremely  in- 
toxicating, it  is  difficult  after  only  a  glass  or  two 
to  believe  so.  But  I  have  drunk  it  only  in  the 
country,  where  it  is  fresh  and  comparatively  pure. 
In  towns  it  is  invariably  doctored  and  injurious. 

If  you  are  not  too  warm  and  too  tired  and  too 
cross,  a  Mexican  railway  journey  is  infinitely  more 
amusing  than  trips  by  rail  elsewhere.  In  the  first 
place  smoking,  except  in  sleeping  cars,  is  nowhere 
prohibited,  and  smoking  would  tend  to  promote 
sociability  even  if  Mexicans  on  trains  were  not  al- 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

ways  eager  to  talk  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night. 
In  a  crowded  car  the  volume  of  conversation  is  at 
times  appalling.  It  is  not  perhaps  deeply  interesting, 
but  it  is  always  amiable,  vivacious,  and  Incessant, 
and  if  you  show  the  slightest  desire  to  participate 
you  are  never  made  to  feel  unwelcome. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  shibboleth  of  travel  Is,  I  should 
say,  neatness  and  reserve.  We  do  not  keep  on  add- 
ing to  our  carefully  calculated  luggage  after  we 
have  once  settled  ourselves  in  a  train,  and  we  are  not 
inclined  to  forsake  our  book  or  our  magazine  for  a 
casual  acquaintance  unless  we  have  some  reason  to 
believe  the  exchange  will  be  profitable.  Mexicans, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  in  an  engaging  fashion  the 
most  slovenly  and  expansive  little  travelers  Imagi- 
nable. For  laden  though  they  be  with  all  manner  of 
flimsy  baggage,  they  impulsively  buy  everything  that 
Is  thrust  at  them — if  it  takes  up  enough  room  and  is 
sufficiently  useless — and  talk  to  everyone  in  sight. 

The  train,  for  Instance,  stops  at  a  lonely  station 
in  a  vast  dun-colored  plain,  planted  everywhere  in 
straight,  never-ending  lines  of  maguey.  At  the  foot 
of  the  bare  mountains  in  the  distance,  and  seen 
through  a  faint  haze  of  dust,  is  the  high  white  in- 
closure  around  the  buildings  of  an  hacienda  with  the 
tiled  dome  and  towers  of  its  private  church  glitter- 

176 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

ing  in  the  sunlight.  Two  antique,  high-hung  car- 
riages with  dusty  leather  curtains,  each  drawn  by  a 
pair  of  mules,  are  at  one  side  of  the  station,  and 
standing  near  by  a  neat  mozo,  with  a  smart  straw 
sombrero  (a  Mexican  hat,  more  than  other  hats 
takes  on  something  of  the  nature  of  its  owner), and  a 
narrowly  folded  red  sarape  reposing — Heaven  knows 
how;  I  can't  carrj^  one  that  way — on  his  left  shoul- 
der, is  holding  three  saddle  horses.  The  antique 
carriages — they  look  as  if  they  dated  from  the  time 
of  Maximilian,  and  probably  do — have  brought  the 
hacendado,  his  imposing  wife,  two  babies,  three  older 
children,  a  nurse  for  each  baby,  and  two  dressy,  hat- 
less  young  ladies,  from  the  house  to  the  train.  One 
of  the  horses  was  ridden  by  a  mozo  who  is  to  accom- 
pany the  family  on  its  travels  (he,  however,  goes 
second  class),  the  second  brought  the  mozo  who  is 
to  lead  back  the  horse  of  the  first,  while  the  third — 
a  finer  animal  who  objects  to  trains  and  whose  head 
has  been  left  tightly  checked  for  tlie  benefit  of  the 
passengers — carried  a  slender  young  man,  presu- 
mably the  son,  who  has  come  to  see  the  others  off. 
Mamma  is  not  yet  middle-aged,  but  her  figure — her 
waist  line — is  but  a  reminiscence ;  has  passed  in  fact 
into  Mexican  history.  She  wears  a  heavy  brown 
woolen  skirt  (the  thermometer  stands  at  about  92°), 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

a  rebozo  twisted  around  her  arms  and  across  her 
back  as  if  she  were  a  lady  Laocoon,  and  a  shirt  waist 
of  white  cashmere  covered  with  large  crimson  polka 
dots ;  the  kind  of  material  that  makes  one  feel  as  if 
a  very  methodical  person  had  had  the  nose-bleed. 
Papa  has  on  skin-tight  trousers  of  shepherd's  plaid, 
a  "  bailed  "  shirt  with  a  turned-over  collar  (clean — 
but  they  wilted  on  the  drive),  a  plain  black  jacket 
that  extends  only  a  few  inches  below  his  belt,  a 
flowing  silk  necktie  of  the  peculiarly  beautiful  shade 
of  scarlet  one  usually  sees  in  the  neckties  of  rurales, 
a  small  but  businesslike  revolver  in  a  holster  at  his 
hip,  and  a  shaggy,  gray  beaver  sombrero  embroidered 
around  the  brim  in  gold  and  silver  flowers,  weigh- 
ing about  tw^o  pounds  and  costing  at  least  seventy- 
five  or  a  hundred  pesos.  The  older  children — little 
girls — and  the  two  dressy,  hatless  young  ladies  are 
in  what  might  be  called  the  Franco-Mexican  style 
of  traveling  costume ;  thin  summer  dresses  of  bright 
pink  and  yellow  and  blue  and  white  materials  made 
with  many  little  tucks  and  frills  and  ruffles,  and 
adorned  with  narrow  bands  of  coarse  white  lace 
applied  in  a  rather  irrelevant  fashion  with  here  and 
there  a  knot  of  soiled  white  satin  ribbon.  Besides  a 
goodly  number  of  venerable  valises  they  have  brought 
with   them   the   usual  collection   of  cardboard   hat 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

boxes  and  tenates  (a  kind  of  flexible  basket  without 
handles,  made  of  matting).  Some  of  their  effects 
are  informally  wrapped  in  bath  towels  of  pleasing 
hues.  It  takes  much  time,  a  whirlwind  of  talk  and 
all  the  remaining  space  in  the  car,  to  stow  away 
everybody  and  everything;  then  as  the  train  moves 
from  the  station  there  is  a  shrill  chorus  of  good-bys 
and  a  prolonged  wiggling  of  fingers  through  the 
windows  at  the  son  on  the  platform. 

As  it  is  only  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  they 
undoubtedly  were  fortified  by  an  elaborate  midday 
meal  about  an  hour  and  a  half  before,  but  at  the 
next  station  oranges  are  offered  for  sale,  so  papa 
through  the  window  buys  a  dozen  oranges  and  every- 
body, maids  and  all — except  the  youngest  baby — 
eats  one.  A  few  stations  farther  on  we  pass  through 
a  kind  of  an  oasis  where  flowers  are  grown  for  the 
market.  Short  sections  of  the  trunk  of  a  banana 
tree,  hollowed  out,  stopped  at  both  ends  and  filled 
with  gardenias,  are  held  up  to  the  window.  Every- 
one exclaims,  "  Oh  que  bonitas!  "  and  as  they  have 
more  things  now  than  they  can  take  care  of,  mamma 
buys  one  of  them  and,  after  a  short  mental  struggle, 
the  elder  of  the  dressy  young  ladies  buys  another. 

"  How  fragrant  they  are !  "  you  murmur  as  the 
sweet,  opaque  scent  of  the  gardenias  begins  to  join 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

forces  with  the  tobacco  smoke  and  the  lingering 
smell  of  the  eleven  oranges.  Papa,  delighted,  at  once 
picks  out  one  of  the  largest  flowers  and  hands  it 
to  you  across  the  aisle.  Your  thanks  are  profuse  and 
there  is  a  moment  of  intensely  interested  silence 
while  you  smell  it  and  put  it  in  your  button-hole. 
Then  you  ask  mamma  what  they  are  called  in  Span- 
ish, and  after  she  tells  you — repeating  the  name  em- 
phatically four  or  five  times — she  asks  you  if  they 
grow  in  your  country.  You  reply  yes,  but  that  they 
are  expensive — costing  in  midwinter  sometimes  as 
much  as  a  dollar  gold  apiece.  This  announcement 
creates  a  tremendous  sensation  on  the  part  of  every- 
one, as  mamma  didn't  pay  a  fifth  of  that  sum  for  all 
of  them.  One  of  the  dressy  young  ladies  says  she  is 
going  to  count  hers  to  see  how  much  they  would 
come  to  in  the  United  States  in  midwinter;  and 
now  the  bark  of  conversation  having  been  success- 
fully launched,  j^ou  sail  pleasantly  along  in  it  until 
the  next  station,  where  one  of  the  three  little  girls 
interrupts  with  the  exclamation  that  on  the  plat- 
form she  sees  some  papayas.  A  papaya  being  a 
bulky,  heavy  fruit  of  irregular  shape  and  the  size 
of  a  large  squash,  papa  naturally  leans  out  of  the 
window  and  acquires  two — buying  the  second  one, 
he  explains,  in  case  he  should  be  disappointed  in  the 

1 80 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

flavor  of  the  first.  But  before  the  opening  of  the 
papaya  you  excuse  yourself  and  go  into  another  car, 
for  without  a  plate  and  a  knife  and  a  spoon,  a  pa- 
paya, like  a  mango,  can  be  successfully  managed 
only  while  naked  in  a  bath  tub.  After  it  is  all  over, 
however,  you  return  for  more  talk,  and  for  days 
afterwards,  if  your  destination  happens  to  be  the 
same,  you  and  papa  wriggle  fingers  at  each  other 
from  passing  cabs,  and  you  and  mamma  and  the  two 
dressy  young  ladies  (who  still  haven't  hats)  bow  as 

old  friends.    But  about  hotels 

They  are,  broadly  speaking,  of  three  kinds. 
First,  the  ordinary  "  best  hotel "  and  next  best 
hotel  of  the  place,  conducted  by  Mexicans  who 
have  gradually  made  concessions  to  progress  until 
their  establishments  are  equipped  with  electric 
lights,  electric  bells  (sometimes),  sanitary  plumb- 
ing, wire-spring  mattresses  (or  whatever  they  are 
called),  some  comfortable  chairs  in  either  the 
patio  or  the  sala,  and  cooks  whose  dishes,  although 
native  in  conception,  are  yet  conservative  in  the 
matter  of  chile  and  lard.  Secondly,  there  is  the 
occasional  hotel  kept  by  an  American  family,  whose 
advertisements  emphasize  the  fact  that  here  you 
will  enjoy  the  delights  of  "  American  home  cook- 
ing."     And,    finally,    there    is   what   is    known    in 

i8i 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Mexico  as  a  meson :  a  combination  of  lodging  house 
for  man  and  stable  for  his  horses  and  mules. 

The  ordinary  best  and  second-best  hotels  in  Mex- 
ican towns  I  have  grown  to  regard  as  exceedingly- 
creditable  and  satisfactory  places  in  which  to  abide. 
They  are  not  luxurious;  tiled  floors,  with  a  strip 
of  carpet  or  matting  at  the  bedside,  calcimined  walls 
without  pictures,  just  sufficient  furniture,  and  high, 
austere  ceilings,  are  not  our  idea  of  luxury.  But 
as  long  as  they  preserve  their  distinctly  Mexican 
characteristics  they  are,  contrary  to  the  conventional 
idea  of  the  country,  above  all,  clean.  I  have  rarely 
been  in  a  Mexican  hotel  where  the  chambermaids 
(who  are  usually  men)  did  not  all  but  drive  me 
insane  with  their  endless  mopping  and  dusting  and 
scouring  and  polishing  of  my  ascetic  bedroom. 
When,  however,  as  sometimes  happens,  the  propri- 
etor of  the  "  best "  hotel  becomes  desirous  of  up- 
holstered chairs  and  carpets,  it  is  well,  I  think, 
to  patronize  the  still  Mexican  second  best.  Few 
things  are  more  lovable  than  carpets  and  uphol- 
stery worn  shabby  by  those  we  care  for,  but  nothing 
is  more  squalid  and  repulsive  than  the  evidence  of 
unknown  contacts  paid  for  by  the  day  or  week. 
The  hotels,  as  a  rule,  are  of  two  stories  built  around 
a  tiled  patio,  full  of  flowers  and  plants,  and  open 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

to  the  sky.  The  more  expensive  rooms  have  win- 
dows looking  upon  the  street,  and  in  cold  or  gloomy 
weather  have  the  advantage  of  being  lighter  and 
warmer  than  the  others.  In  very  hot  weather, 
however,  the  cheap  rooms — dim,  windowless,  and 
opening  only  on  the  patio — are  sometimes  prefer- 
able. Prices  vary  slightly  in  different  places  and 
at  different  seasons,  but  at  their  highest  they  are 
never  really  exorbitant,  outside  of  the  Capital. 
Board  and  lodging  costs  any^vhere  from  two  and 
a  half  to  five  pesos  a  day,  according  to  the  situa- 
tion of  your  room,  and,  unlike  European  hotels, 
this  includes  everything.  There  are  none  of  the 
extra  charges  for  light,  attendance,  "  covers,"  and 
so  on,  that  in  Europe  so  annoy  the  American  trav- 
eler. At  one  hotel  at  Cuernavaca,  during  the  tour- 
ist season,  rooms  and  board  are  as  high  as  six  pesos 
a  day,  but  this  lasts  only  a  short  time,  and  Is,  after 
all,  not  so  ruinous  as  it  sounds  when  you  think  of 
it  as  three  American  dollars  rather  than  six  Mex- 
ican pesos.  For  a  peso  or  so  less  you  can,  if  you 
wish,  take  a  room  at  a  hotel  without  board ;  but 
unless  you  happen  to  have  friends  in  town  who 
keep  house,  and  with  whom  you  constantly  lunch 
and  dine,  there  is  no  advantage  in  doing  so,  as  the 
best  restaurant  is  invariably  that  of  the  best  hotel. 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

When  I  said  that  there  were  no  restaurants  in 
Mexico,  I  merely  meant  that  while  the  various  na- 
tive fondas  and  cafes  where  meals  are  served  are 
sometimes  clean  and  adequate,  they  do  not  offer 
any  of  those  attractions  that  in  the  cities  of  Eu- 
rope, and  a  very  few  cities  of  the  United  States, 
tempt  one  from  one's  ordinary  existence.  There  is 
in  Mexico  no  "restaurant  life"  (for  want  of  a 
better  term),  no  lavishly  appointed  interiors  where 
you  may  go  to  watch  well-dressed  people  spending 
a  great  deal  of  money,  listening  to  music,  and  eat- 
ing things  they  are  unaccustomed  to  at  home. 

The  meals  in  Mexican  hotels  are:  Breakfast, 
from  about  seven  to  half  past  nine,  consisting  of 
coffee,  chocolate,  or  tea,  and  pan  dulce  or  rolls. 
Eggs  and  meat  are  extra.  To  a  few  teaspoonfuls 
of  excessively  strong  coffee  is  added  a  cupful  of 
boiling  milk.  Mexican  coffee  is  excellent  in  itself, 
but  the  native  habit  of  overroasting  it  makes  its 
flavor  harsh.  As  milk  is  almost  always  boiled  in 
Mexico,  cream  is  unknown.  Chocolate  is  good 
ever3a\'here,  although  it  is  difficult  at  first  to  recon- 
cile yourself  to  the  custom,  in  some  places,  of  flavor- 
ing it  with  cinnamon.  Persons  who  like  tea  for 
breakfast,  or  at  any  time,  should  travel  with  their 
own. 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

At  dinner — from  noon  to  about  half  past  two — 
you  are  given  soup,  sometimes  fish,  eggs  always 
(cooked  in  any  way  you  please),  meat  (beefsteak 
or  roast  beef),  chicken  (or  another  kind  of  meat), 
with  salad  if  you  ask  for  it,  frijoles  (a  paste  of 
black  beans),  a  desert  (preserves  of  some  sort, 
rarely  pastry),  fruit,  and  coffee.  All  of  which 
sounds  rather  better  than  it  ever  is.  The  dinner 
is  served  in  courses,  and  in  some  hotels  you  are 
expected  to  use  the  same  knife  and  fork  through- 
out. You  never  have  any  desire  to  eat  or,  after 
the  first  day  or  so,  to  try  everything.  The  soups 
arc  well  flavored  and  nourishing,  the  eggs  are  al- 
ways fresh,  the  frijoles  preserve  a  certain  standard 
throughout  the  country,  which  you  appreciate  if 
you  like  frijoles,  cither  the  chicken  or  one  of  the 
meats  is  as  a  rule  possible — and  after  all,  soup, 
eggs,  frijoles,  another  vegetable,  a  meat,  lettuce, 
and  fruit  ought  to  be  enough.  The  hard  rolls  you 
get  everj'where  are  of  good  quality  and  well  baked. 
Butter,  fortunately,  is  almost  nonexistent,  as  it  is 
very  bad.  The  only  edible  butter  in  Mexico  is 
made  in  Kansas,  and  can  be  bought  in  convenient 
one-pound  packages  at  the  leading  grocery  stores 
in  the  City-  of  Mexico,  and  also  in  some  of  the 
smaller  towns.  There  is  no  objection  whatever  to 
13  185 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

your  taking  your  own  tea  and  butter,  or  anything 
else  that  contributes  to  your  comfort,  into  the 
dining  room  of  Mexican  hotels.  Except  during 
the  hours  at  which  meals  are  served,  you  cannot 
get  anything  to  eat.  Persons  who  are  accustomed 
to  some  form  of  refreshment  before  going  to  bed 
should  keep  it  in  their  rooms. 

Supper — from  half  past  six  until  about  nine 
o'clock — is,  except  for  the  omission  of  eggs,  very 
much  like  dinner,  although  somewhat  less  elabo- 
rate in  small  places.  (I  employ  the  terms  dinner 
and  supper  rather  than  luncheon  and  dinner,  as 
they  are  the  literal  translations  of  the  Spanish 
vv'ords  comida  and  cena.) 

"  Don't  monkey  with  Mexican  microbes!  A 
stitch  in  time  may  save  six  weeks  in  the  hospital! 
Let  the  other  fellow  run  the  risk  of  typhoid,  if 
he  wishes  to !  " — so  runs,  in  part,  the  advertisement 
of  a  certain  bottling  company  in  Mexico.  The  fact 
that  the  advice  is  primarily  intended  to  increase 
the  sales  of  the  firm  in  question  does  not  render 
it  the  less  sound.  Mexicans  are  peculiarly  igno- 
rant of  the  principles  of  sanitation,  and  careless  of 
them  even  when  informed.  Typhus,  typhoid,  and 
smallpox  are  prevalent  in  the  City  of  Mexico  all 
the  year  round,   although,  either  through  indiffer- 

i86 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ence  or  a  reluctance  to  admit  it,  cases  are  not  re- 
ported  in    the   newspapers   until   the    frequency   of 
funerals  begins  to  cast  a  universal  gloom.     Impure 
water  may  or  may  not  have  any  bearing  upon  ty- 
phus and  smallpox;  upon  typhoid,  however,  it  has. 
In  many  of  the  smaller  towns  the  water,  brought 
as  it  is  in  pipes  from  a  distance,  is  pure  and  health- 
ful, but  you  cannot  be  sure  of  just  what  happens 
to  it  after  it  has  arrived.     It  is  far  more  prudent, 
unless  you  are  keeping  house  and  can  boil  water, 
to  drink  a  pure,  bottled  mineral  water.     The  most 
convenient — for   the   simple   reason    that   it   can  be 
bought  at  almost  any  bar  from  end  to  end  of  the 
country — is  the  Tehuacan  water  (Agua  Tehuacan) 
bottled  at  Tehuacan  by  several  companies;  the  San 
Lorenzo,  the  Cruz  Roja,  and  El  Riego,  the  chem- 
ical analysis  of  all  the  waters  being  about  the  same. 
It  is  light,  refreshing,  absolutely  pure,  and  bottled 
by  machinery  with  every   precaution.     The  water 
from   the  Cruz  Roja  spring,   in   fact,   is   not  even 
exposed  to   the  air  from  the  time  it  enters  a  pipe 
underground  to  when  it  is  forced,  a  moment  later, 
into  a  bottle  and  sealed. 

Few  beds  in  Mexico  have  arrived  at  the  sybaritic 
luxury  of  feather  pillows.  The  national  pillow  is 
a  narrow,   long,  unsympathetic  contrivance  tightly 

187 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

stuffed  with  hair,  or  something  more  unyielding. 
You  should  travel  with  your  own  pillow,  and  also 
with  a  blanket  or  a  steamer  rug.  Also,  few  hotels 
have  facilities  for  bathing.  To  take  a  bath,  one 
goes  out  to  a  bathing  establishment  (there  are  al- 
ways several),  where  hot  and  cold  water,  clean 
towels,  and  soap  are  plentiful  and  cheap.  As  the 
Anglo-Saxon  cold  bath  has  little  relation  to  clean- 
liness, and  is  merely  either  an  affectation  on  the 
part  of  persons  who  don't  enjoy  it  or  a  pleasant 
shock  to  the  system  on  the  part  of  those  who  do, 
it  may  be  dispensed  with  or  taken  in  a  basin. 

At  night,  hotels  lock  their  massive  front  doors 
at  ten  or  half  past,  but  a  porter  sleeping  on  the 
floor  just  inside  admits  you  at  any  hour.  All  over 
the  w^orld,  servants  like  to  be  tipped,  and  the  cus- 
tom of  tipping  obtains  in  Mexico  as  elsewhere,  but 
as  5'et  it  has  remained  within  decent  bounds.  A 
mozo  in  a  Alexican  hotel  is  pleased,  and  sometimes 
surprised,  by  what  his  European  or  American  equiv- 
alent would  probably  scorn. 

To  make  a  point  of  such  trivial  matters  as 
matches,  candles,  keys,  and  door  knobs  will  prob- 
ably seem  as  if  I  were  going  out  of  my  way,  but 
in  Mexico  I  have  been  the  amused  witness  of  so 
much   real  anguish   occasioned  by  the  presence  or 

i88 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

absence  of  these  prosaic  implements  that  in  regard 
to  them  I  feel  a  certain  responsibility.  Almost 
everywhere  there  are  incandescent  lights  in  Mex- 
ican hotels,  but  in  some  places  the  power  is  turned 
off  at  midnight,  or  half  an  hour  later,  and,  as  hap- 
pens in  all  countries,  the  lights,  at  inopportune 
moments  now  and  then,  go  out.  When  they  do 
go  out,  you  grope  helplessly  in  darkness,  for  it  is 
not  customary  to  foresee  such  emergencies  and  sup- 
ply the  bedrooms  with  matches  and  candles.  A 
candle  and  a  box  of  matches  in  your  traveling  bag 
may  never  be  needed,  but  when  they  are  needed 
they  are  needed  instantly,  and  you  will  be  glad 
you  have  them.  Door  knobs  in  Mexico,  for  abso- 
lutely no  reason  whatever,  are  placed  so  near  the 
frame  of  the  door  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
grasp  them  without  pinching  your  fingers,  and  in 
order  to  lock  or  unlock  a  door  the  key,  as  a  rule, 
must  be  inserted  upside  down,  and  then  turned  the 
wrong  way. 

The  following  notice  (it  hung,  printed  and 
framed,  in  the  sala  of  a  Mexican  hotel)  will,  I  feel 
sure,  prove  of  interest  to  the  student  of  language: 

"  It  is  not  permitted  for  any  whatsoever  motive 
to  use  this  saloon  to  eat,  or  for  games  of  ball  or 
others  that  could  prejudice  the  tranquillity  of  the 

189 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

passengers,  or  furthermore  to  remove  the  furnitures 
from  their  respective  sites.  At  eleven  of  the  clock 
the  Administrador  will  usurp  the  right  to  order 
the  extinguishment  of  the  lamp  without  permitting 
of  observations." 

The  second  kind  of  hotel  (the  hotel  kept  by  an 
American)  possesses  the  various  defects  of  a  Mex- 
ican establishment,  with  several  others  all  its  own. 
It  is  rarely  as  clean  as  a  Mexican  hotel,  and  the 
"  home  cooking  "  so  insisted  upon  in  the  advertise- 
ments merely  means  that  the  cooking  is  of  the  kind 
the  proprietress  was  accustomed  to  before  her  emi- 
gration— which  does  not  necessarily  recommend  it. 
"  American  cooking "  or  "  home  cooking "  is  no 
better  than  any  other  kind  of  cooking  when  it  is 
bad.  You  don't  eat  through  sentiment  or  patriot- 
ism, but  through  necessitj^  Among  this  class  of 
hotel  I  feel  it  is  only  honest  to  except  one  at  Cuer- 
navaca,  which  has  charming  rooms,  a  most  exquisite 
patio,  and  an  "  American  table  "  about  as  good  as 
that  of  the  average  New  England  summer  boarding 
house. 

Few  Americans  who  are  traveling  for  pleasure 
in  Mexico  will  be  likely  to  patronize  what  is  known 
as  a  meson.  It  would  not  have  occurred  to  me  to 
do  so  had  I  not  slept  in  them  in  small  towns  off  the 

190 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

line  of  the  railway,  where  there  is  no  place  else  to 
stay.  When  traveling  on  a  horse  or  a  mule,  a 
night's  lodging  for  the  steed  is,  of  course,  even  more 
essential  than  for  the  rider,  and  the  meson,  as  I 
have  said,  is  a  combination  of  inn  and  stable. 
Primitive  and  comfortless  as  they  often  are,  they 
have  for  me  a  fascination — the  fascination  of  some- 
thing read  and  thought  of  in  childhood  that  in  la- 
ter life  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  comes  true.  A 
Mexican  me^on,  with  its  bare  little  bedrooms  on 
one  side  of  the  great  courtyard  and  its  stalls  for  the 
animals  on  the  other;  with  its  clatter  of  arriving 
and  departing  mule  trains,  its  neighing  and  bray- 
ing and  shoeing  and  currying.  Its  litter  of  equip- 
ment and  freight — saddles,  bridles,  preposterous 
spurs,  pack  saddles,  saddle  bags,  saddle  blankets, 
conical  sugar  loaves  and  casks  of  aguardiente  from 
some  sugar  hacienda,  boxes,  bales,  sacks  of  coffee — 
its  stiff  and  wear\'  travelers,  its  swearing,  swag- 
gering arrleros — It  is  the  Spain  of  the  story-books, 
the  Spain  of  Don  Quixote.  You  fall  asleep  at  an 
early  hour  to  the  rhythmic  crunching  of  mules' 
teeth  on  cane  leaves  and  corn,  and  you  are  awak- 
ened In  the  cold  dark  by  the  voice  of  your  mozo 
slowly  and  solemnly  proclaiming:  "  Seiior,  es  de 
dia."     (It  Is  day.) 

191 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

I  perhaps  should  not  have  mentioned  the  meson 
if  its  attraction  for  me  had  not  led  me  to  try  it 
in  cities  where  there  was  no  necessity  to.  Even  in 
the  cities  and  large  towns  it  is  still  a  primitive 
institution,  but  it  is  always  inexpensive,  and  the 
rooms  in  those  of  the  better  class  are  clean,  I 
have  had  a  well-lighted  room  of  ample  size,  with 
a  comfortable  bed,  a  washstand,  a  table,  two  chairs, 
a  row  of  hooks  to  hang  clothes  on,  and  an  attentive 
mozo  usually  within  call,  for  seventy-five  centavos 
(thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents)  a  day.  There  are 
no  restaurants  attached  to  these  places,  and  abso- 
lutely no  one  in  them  speaks  English. 

In  fact,  although  Mexicans  are  becoming  more 
and  more  interested  in  English,  and  are  everywhere 
studying  the  language,  it  is  as  yet  not  very  coher- 
ently spoken  by  the  natives  with  whom  a  traveler 
is  likely  to  come  in  contact.  A  few  sentences  by 
a  clerk  in  a  shop,  half  a  dozen  disconnected  words 
by  a  waiter  in  a  hotel,  are  about  the  extent  of  what 
you  hear  among  the  working  classes.  And  yet,  with 
no  knowledge  of  Spanish,  you  can,  without  mishap 
or  difficulty,  travel  by  rail  almost  anywhere  in 
Mexico.  The  country  is  accustomed  to  travelers 
who  do  not  speak  its  language,  and  more  often 
than  not  knows  instinctively  and  from  habit  what 

192 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

they  want  next.  Of  course,  to  be  able  to  ask  ques- 
tions and  understand  the  answers  is  both  a  con- 
venience and  a  pleasure;  but  it  is  surprising  how 
far  a  very  few  words  of  Spanish  on  the  one  hand 
and  English  on  the  other  will  carry  you  in  com- 
parative peace  of  mind.  When  the  worst  comes 
to  the  worst,  as  by  an  unforeseen  combination  of 
circumstances  it  sometimes  does,  and  you  are  on 
the  point  of  losing  your  reason  or,  what  is  much 
worse,  your  temper,  the  inevitable  kind  lady  or  kind 
gentleman,  who  is  to  be  found  in  every  country 
and  who  knows  everything,  always  appears  at  the 
proper  moment,  asks  if  he  can  be  of  any  assistance, 
and  sends  you  on  your  way  rejoicing.  In  any  event, 
in  provincial  Mexico  nothing  unpleasant  is  likely 
to  happen  to  you. 

Just  what  is  the  attitude  toward  foreigners  of 
the  people  in  general  it  is  difficult — Impossible, 
even — to  find  out.  A  year  or  so  ago,  several  weeks 
before  the  i6th  of  September  (the  anniversary  of 
Hidalgo's  Declaration  of  Independence),  it  was 
widely  announced  in  the  newspapers  of  the  United 
States  that  far-reaching  plans  had  been  laid  by  the 
lower  classes  in  Mexico  to  obser^^e  the  national  fes- 
tival by  killing  all  foreigners.  "  Mexico  for  Mex- 
icans "  was  to  be  the  motto  of  the  future.     This 

193 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

quaint  conceit — evolved,  without  doubt,  by  the  pes- 
tiferous revolutionary  junta  in  Saint  Louis — was 
not  much  heard  of  by  foreigners  in  Mexico;  but 
then,  in  Mexico  very  little  is  heard  of.  A  few 
timid  persons  remained  at  home  during  the  day, 
but  the  day  passed  off  without  bloodshed,  and  the 
rumor  was  decided  to  have  been  only  a  rumor. 
That  there  was,  however,  more  to  it  than  was  gen- 
erally supposed  (although  how  much  more  it  would 
be  impossible  to  find  out)  was  evident  from  the 
fact  that  the  Government  quietly  and  inconspicu- 
ously took  notice  of  it.  In  one  place,  where  I  have 
some  American  friends  living  on  the  edge  of  town 
— almost  in  the  country — two  rurales,  heavily 
armed  as  usual,  sauntered  out  to  their  houses  at 
an  early  hour  of  the  morning,  and  remained  there 
all  day  and  until  late  that  night.  As  they  spent 
the  time  in  chatting  and  smoking  with  acquaint- 
ances who  happened  to  pass  by,  it  was  not  obvious 
that  they  were  there  for  any  especial  purpose.  But 
they  were  there,  although  they  had  never  been  there 
before  and  have  never  been  there  since.  In  an- 
other town  a  group  of  noisy  hoodlums  went  at 
night  to  the  house  of  one  of  the  consuls  (not  the 
Spanish  consul,  by  the  way,  which  would  have  been 
more  or  less  natural)  with  the  intention  of  "  doing 

194 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

something,"  just  what,  they  themselves  apparently 
did  not  know.  Here,  also,  were  two  rurales,  and 
at  sight  of  them  the  intentions  of  the  little  mob 
prudently  underwent  a  collapse.  The  spokesman 
soon  summoned  sufficient  courage  to  request  that 
they  please  be  allowed  to  break  a  few  wnndows  if 
they  promised  to  go  no  farther,  but  the  rurales 
replied  that  the  first  man  who  even  stooped  to  pick 
up  a  stone  would  be  shot.  Whereupon  the  crowd 
retired.  (It  is  irrelevant,  but  also  amusing,  to  re- 
cord that  on  the  retreat  the  members  of  the  gang 
got  Into  a  quarrel  among  themselves,  during  which 
two  of  them  were  stabbed  and  killed.)  Beyond 
an  admirable  preparedness  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, this  proves  little,  as  the  consul  in  question 
was  personally  most  unpopular  with  the  people  of 
the  town.  But  it  of  course  proves  something — or 
the  Government  wouldn't  have  been  so  prepared — 
although  I  find  it  difficult  to  see  in  it  a  proof  of 
hostility  toward  foreigners  on  the  part  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  Mexican  people.  If  they  do  feel  un- 
kindly toward  us,  they  are  adepts  in  prolonged  and 
continuous  deception,  for  they  are  universally  re- 
sponsive to  friendly  overtures. 

On  the  whole,  I  should  not  advise  an  invalid  to 
go  to  Mexico,  for  I  have  met  invalids  there  who, 

195 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

although  they  perhaps  might  not  have  been  happy 
anywhere,  struck  me  as  being  for  many  unavoidable 
reasons  more  unhappy  in  Mexico  than  they  would 
have  been  had  they  sought  a  warm  climate  nearer 
home.  There  are  a  few  enchanting  places  in  Mex- 
ico where  the  weather  is  warm  and  reasonably  equa- 
ble all  winter,  but  very  few.  And  when  Mexico 
is  cold,  it  is  dreary  even  for  the  robust.  Its 
changes  of  temperature  are  sudden  and  penetrating, 
and,  except  in  one  or  two  hotels  in  the  capital 
(an  impossible  place  for  invalids  of  any  kind),  ar- 
tificial heat  is  practically  unknown.  The  problem 
of  simple,  nourishing  food  is  an  insoluble  problem 
unless  you  keep  house ;  only  by  exercising  self- 
restraint  as  regards  Mexican  cooking  can  well  per- 
sons remain  well.  There  are  no  hotels  that  in  the 
slightest  degree  take  into  consideration  the  needs, 
the  whims,  the  capricious  hours,  the  endless  exi- 
gencies of  the  sick,  and  anyone  whose  well-being 
is  dependent  upon  w^arm  rooms,  good  milk,  quiet 
(the  country  is  incessantly  noisy  with  the  noise  of 
animals  and  bells  and  human  beings),  or  upon  all 
or  any  of  the  little,  expensive  niceties  of  modern 
civilization,  had  better  indefinitely  postpone  his 
visit. 


XII 

A  FEW  daj'S  ago  a  friend  of  mine  In  writing 
to  me  from  home  said  in  his  letter:  "  I  notice 
that  now  and  then  you  refer  casually  to  '  an 
American  man  'or  'an  English  woman  who  lives 
here,'  and  although  I  know  there  must  be  Americans 
and  English  living  in  Mexico  as  well  as  everywhere 
else,  It  always  gives  me  a  feeling  of  incredulity  to 
licar  that  there  are.  I  suppose  I  ought  merely  to 
consider  the  fact  that  you  are  there  and  then  mul- 
tlplj'  you  by  a  hundred  or  a  thousand — or  ten 
thousand  perhaps;  I  have  no  Idea,  of  course,  how 
many.  But  to  tell  the  truth  I  never  altogether 
believe  that  you  go  to  Mexico  when  you  say  you 
do.  \'ou  go  somewhere,  but  is  It  really  Mexico? 
Why  should  anyone  go  to  Mexico?  It  seems 
such  a  perverse — such  a  positively  morbid  thing 
to  do.  And  then,  the  address — that  impossible  ad- 
dress you  leave  behind  you!  Honestly,  are  there 
any  Americans  and  English  down  there  (or  is  it 
'  up  '  or  '  across  '  or  '  over  ' — I  literally  have  for- 
gotten just  where  it  is),  and   If  so,  why  are  they 

197 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

there?    What  are  they  like?     How  do  they  amuse 
themselves?  " 

When  I  read  his  letter  I  recalled  an  evening 
several  years  ago  at  my  brother's  coffee  place — sixty 
miles  from  anywhere  in  particular.  As  it  was  in 
winter,  or  the  "  dry  season,"  it  had  been  raining  (I 
don't  exaggerate),  with  but  one  or  two  brief  inter- 
missions, for  twenty-four  days.  In  that  part  of 
the  republic  the  chief  difference  between  the  dry 
season  and  the  rainy  lies  in  the  fact  that  during  the 
rainy  season  it  rains  with  much  regularity  for  a  few 
hours  every  afternoon  and  during  the  dry  season  it 
rains  with  even  greater  regularity  all  the  time.  As 
the  river  was  swollen  and  unfordable  we  had  not 
been  able  for  days  to  send  to  the  village — an  hour's 
ride  away — for  provisions.  Meat,  of  course,  we  did 
not  have.  In  a  tropical  and  iceless  country,  unless 
one  can  have  fresh  meat  every  day,  one  does  not  have 
it  at  all.  We  had  run  out  of  potatoes,  we  had  run 
out  of  bread  (baker's  bread  in  Mexico  is  good  every- 
where)— we  had  run  out  of  flour.  There  were 
twenty-five  or  thirty  chickens  roosting  on  a  con- 
venient tree,  but  in  our  foolish,  improvident  way 
we  had  allowed  ourselves  to  become  fond  of  the 
chickens  and  I  have  an  incorrigible  prejudice  against 
eating  anything  that  has  engaged  my  affections  when 

198 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

in  life.  So  we  dined  on  a  tin  of  sardines,  some  chile 
verde  and  a  pile  of  tortillas,  which  are  not  bad  when 
patted  thin  and  toasted  to  a  crisp.  Probably  because 
there  were  forty  thousand  pounds  of  excellent  coffee 
piled  up  in  sacks  on  the  piazza,  we  washed  down 
this  banquet  with  draughts  of  Sir  Thomas  Lipton's 
mediocre  tea.  The  evening  was  cold — as  bitterly 
cold  as  it  can  be  only  in  a  thoroughly  tropical  coun- 
try when  the  temperature  drops  to  forty-three  and 
a  screaming  wind  is  forcing  the  rain  through  spaces 
between  the  tiles  overhead.  We  had  also  run  out 
of  petroleum,  and  the  flames  of  the  candles  on  the 
dinner  table  were  more  often  than  not  blue  and 
horizontal.  But  somehow  we  dined  with  great 
gayety  and  talked  all  the  time.  I  remember  how  my 
brother  summoned  Concha  the  cook,  and  courteously 
attracted  her  attention  to  the  fact  that  she  had  evi- 
dently dropped  the  teapot  on  the  untiled  kitchen 
floor — 'that  the  spout  was  clogged  with  mud  and 
that  it  did  not  "  wish  to  pour,"  and  how  he  again 
summoned  her  for  the  purpose  of  declaring  that  the 
three  dead  wasps  he  had  just  fished  out  of  the  chile 
no  doubt  accounted  perfectly  for  its  unusually  de- 
licious flavor.  We  had  scarcely  anything  to  eat,  but 
socially  the  dinner  was  a  great  success.  Immedi- 
ately afterwards  we  both  went  to  bed — each  with 

199 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

a  reading  candle,  a  book  and  a  hot-water  bag.  After 
half  an  hour's  silence  my  brother  irrelevantly  ex- 
claimed : 

"  What  very  agreeable  people  one  runs  across  in 
queer,  out-of-the-way  places !  " 

"Who  on  earth  are  you  thinking  of  now?"  I 
inquired. 

"Why,  I  was  thinking  of  us\"  he  placidly  re- 
plied, and  went  on  with  his  reading. 

Perhaps  we  had  been  agreeable.  At  any  rate  we 
were  in  a  queer  out-of-the-way  place,  that  is  if  any 
place  is  queer  and  out  of  the  way,  which  I  am  be- 
ginning rather  to  doubt.  Since  then  I  have  often 
remembered  that  evening — how,  just  before  it  grew 
dark,  the  tattered  banana  trees  writhed  like  gigantic 
seaweed  in  the  wind,  and  the  cold  rain  hissed  from 
the  spouts  on  the  roof  in  graceful,  crystal  tubes. 
Here  and  there  the  light  of  a  brazero  in  a  laborer's 
bamboo  hut  flared  for  an  instant  through  the  coffee 
trees.  On  the  piazza,  the  tired  Indians,  shivering  in 
their  flimsy,  cotton  garments,  had  covered  themselves 
with  matting  and  empty  coffee  sacks  and  were  trying 
to  sleep.  In  the  kitchen  doorw-ay  a  very  old,  white- 
bearded  man  was  improvising  poetry — sometimes 
sentimental,  sometimes  heroic,  sometimes  obscene — 
to  a  huddled  and  enthralled  audience  all  big  hats, 

200 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

crimson  blankets,  and  beautiful  eyes.  Apart  from 
this  group,  Saturnino  was  causing  a  jarana  to  throb 
in  a  most  syncopated,  minor,  and  emotional  fashion. 
A  jarana  is  a  primitive  guitar  whose  sounding  board 
consists  usually  of  an  armadillo's  shell.  (Poor  Sa- 
turnino! He  is  now  in  indefinite  solitary  confine- 
ment for  having,  apropos  of  nothing  except  a  slip  of 
a  girl,  disemboweled  one  of  his  neighbors  with  a 
machete.  And  he  was  such  a  gentle,  thoughtful 
creature!  I  don't  quite  understand  it.)  During 
dinner  we  discussed,  among  other  things,  Tolstoi's 
"  War  and  Peace  "  which  we  had  just  finished,  and 
while  agreeing  that  it  was  the  greatest  novel  we  had 
ever  read  or  ever  expected  to  read  (an  opinion  I 
still  possess),  we  did  not  agree  about  Tolstoi's  char- 
acteristically cocksure  remarks  on  the  subject  of  pre- 
destination and  freedom  of  the  will.  As  neither  of 
us  had  studied  philosophy  we  were  unable  to  com- 
mand the  special  terminology — the  specific  jargon 
that  always  makes  a  philosophic  discussion  seem  so 
profound,  and  our  colloquial  efforts  to  express  our- 
selves were  at  times  piquant.  In  the  midst  of  it  a 
tarantula  slithered  across  the  tablecloth  and  I 
squashed  him  with  a  candlestick  as  he  was  about  to 
disappear  over-  the  table's  edge.  Of  course  we  dis- 
puted as  to  whether  or  not,  in  the  original  concep- 
U  20 1 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

tion  of  the  universe,  God  had  sketched  the  career 
of  the  tarantula  in  its  relation  to  that  of  the  candle- 
stick and  mine,  and — yes,  on  looking  back,  I  feel 
sure  we  were  both  very  agreeable. 

But  what  I  imagine  I  am  trying  to  get  at  is  that 
I  have  so  often  wonderingly  contrasted  the  general 
scene  with  our  being  there  at  all,  and  then  have  re- 
membered the  simple,  prosaic  circumstances  that  had 
placed  us  in  the  midst  of  it.  In  a  way,  it  is  a  pity 
one  can  remember  such  things;  the  act  renders  it 
so  impossible  to  pose  to  oneself  as  picturesque.  And, 
furthermore,  it  tends  to  shake  one's  belief  in  the 
picturesqueness  of  one's  American  and  English  ac- 
quaintances. (Perhaps  I  mean  "romance"  rather 
than  picturesqueness,  for  compared  to  the  fatuity  of 
importing  picturesqueness  into  Mexico,  the  carrying 
of  coals  to  Newcastle  would  be  a  stroke  of  com- 
m.ercial  genius.)  At  first  there  seems  to  be  some- 
thing romantic  about  all  of  one's  compatriots  who 
live  in  small  Mexican  towns,  or  on  far-away  ranches, 
plantations,  fincas,  haciendas  —  or  whatever  their 
property  happens  to  be  called.  To  the  newly  ar- 
rived there  is  a  sort  of  thrill  merely  in  the  fashion 
in  which  they  take  their  florid,  pictorial  environment 
for  granted.  I  shall  not  forget  my  first  New  Year's 
Day  in  Mexico. 

202 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Until  the  day  before,  I  had  never  been  in  the 
country,  and  there  was  something  ecstatic  in  the 
vividness  of  not  only  the  day  as  a  whole,  but  of  every 
detail  of  color,  form,  temperature,  personality,  and 
conversation.  It  seemed  as  if  everything  in  turn 
leaped  out  and  seized  hold  of  me,  and  now,  long 
afterwards,  I  recall  it  as  one  of  those  marvelous 
days  without  either  half  tones  or  perspective,  on 
which  every  separate  fact  is  brilliant,  and  all  are  of 
equal  importance.  Only  once  since  then  has  Mexico 
had  just  the  same  memorable  effect  upon  me,  and 
that  was  one  night  in  the  little  plaza  of  Jalapa  when, 
as  the  front  doors  of  the  cathedral  swoing  open  and 
the  crowd  within  swarmed  down  the  steps  in  the 
moonlight,  the  band  abruptly  crashed  into  the  bull- 
fightingest  part  of  "  Carmen," 

In  the  tepid,  springlike  afternoon  I  pushed  back 
a  five-barred  gate,  and  through  a  pasture,  where 
horses  stopped  grazing  to  snuff  at  me,  over  a  wall 
of  piled  stones  covered  with  heliotrope,  I  strolled  up 
between  banana  trees  to  a  yellow,  stucco-covered 
house  on  the  hillside.  The  way  to  the  piazza  was 
through  a  tunnel  of  pale-yellow  roses  with  pink 
centers  and  on  the  piazza  was  an  American  lady,  an 
American  gentleman,  a  great  many  languorous-look- 
ing chairs,  and  two  gallons  of  eggnog  in  a  bowl  of 

203 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Indian  pottery.  All  of  the  small  Anglo-Saxon  colony 
and  a  few  others  had  been  asked  to  drop  in  during 
the  afternoon,  but  I  was  the  first  to  arrive,  and  I 
remember  that  the  necessary  interchange  of  com- 
monplace civilities  with  my  hosts,  the  talk  of  mu- 
tual acquaintances  on  the  boat  from  New  York  and 
the  answering  of  questions  about  weather  and  poli- 
tics in  the  United  States,  seemed  unspeakably  shal- 
low to  one  suddenly  confronted  by  so  exquisite  and 
sublime  a  view.  For  the  view  from  the  piazza,  I 
hasten  to  add  by  way  of  justifying  two  words  so 
opposite  in  suggestion,  was,  I  afterwards  learned, 
characteristic  of  the  mountainous,  tropical  parts  of 
Mexico,  and,  like  most  of  the  views  there,  combined 
both  the  grandeur,  the  awfulness  of  space  and  height 
— of  eternal,  untrodden  snows  piercing  the  thin 
blue,  with  the  soft  velvet  beauty  of  tropical  verdure 
— the  unimaginable  delicacy  and  variety  of  color 
that  glows  and  palpitates  in  vast  areas  of  tropical 
foliage  seen  at  different  distances  through  haze  and 
sunlight.  Mountains  usually  have  an  elemental, 
geologic  sex  of  some  sort,  and  the  sex  of  slumber- 
ing, jungle-covered,  tropical  mountains  is  female. 
There  is  a  symmetry,  a  chaste  volcanic  elegance 
about  them  that  render  them  the  consorts  and 
daughters  of  man-mountains  like,  say,  the  Alps,  the 

204 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

Rockies,  the  mountains  of  the  Caucasus.  At  their 
crudest  they  are  rarely  somber;  their  precipitous 
sides  and  overhanging  crags  are  sheathed  in  vegeta- 
tion of  a  depth  that  refines  and  softens,  and  the 
quivering  lights  and  shadows  that  at  times  are  ap- 
parently all  their  substance,  are  the  lights  and 
shadows  of  those  excessively  etherealized,  vignetted 
engravings  on  the  title  pages  of  old  gift  books. 

At  the  sloping  pasture's  lower  end  the  compact, 
tile-roofed,  white-walled  town  glared  in  the  Janu- 
ary sunlight — a  town  in  a  garden,  or,  when  one  for 
a  moment  lost  sight  of  the  outlying  orange  groves, 
fields  of  green-gold  sugar  cane,  patches  of  shimmer- 
ing corn  and  clumps  of  banana  trees — an  all-per- 
vasive garden  in  a  town.  For  compact  as  the  Ori- 
ental-looking little  place  was,  green  and  purple, 
yellow  and  red  sprang  from  its  interstices  every- 
where as  though  they  had  welled  up  from  the  rich 
plantations  below  and  overflowed.  One  gazed  down 
upon  the  trees  of  tiny  plazas,  the  dense  dark  foliage 
of  walled  gardens,  into  shady,  flower-fillcd  patios 
and  sunny,  luxuriant,  neglected  churchyards,  and 
beyond,  the  mysterious  valley  melted  away  in  vast 
and  ever  vaster  distances — the  illimitable  valley  of 
a  dream — a  vision — an  allegory — slowly  rising  at 
last,  in  tier  upon  tier  of  faintly  opalescent  volcanoes, 

205 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

the  texture  of  gauze.  Up  and  up  and  up  they 
lifted  and  swam  and  soared,  until,  as  with  a  swift 
concerted  escape  into  the  blue  and  icy  air  of  heaven, 
they  culminated  in  the  smooth,  inaccessible,  swan- 
like snow  upon  the  peak  of  Orizaba.  Mexico's  four, 
well-defined  climates,  from  the  blazing  summer  of 
the  valley,  to  glittering  winter  only  some  thousands 
of  feet  above,  were  here,  I  realized,  all  the  year 
round,  visibly  in  full  blast. 

Then  other  guests  began  to  push  back  the  heavy 
gate  and  stroll  up  the  long  slope,  and  I  found  myself 
meeting  them  and  hearing  them  all  talk,  with  a 
thrill  as  keen — if  of  a  different  quality — as  that 
with  which  I  had  gaped  at  the  view.  They  seemed 
to  me  then  quite  as  unreal.  There  was  about  them 
an  impenetrable  aura  of  fiction ;  they  were  the  plain 
tales  that  Kipling  would  have  lashed  to  the  mast 
had  his  hills  been  Mexican — had  Simla  been  Bar- 
ranca. 

There  was  the  British  consul — a  quaint,  kindly, 
charming  little  man — who  while  in  the  act  of  de- 
lightedly making  one  pun  could  scarcely  conceal  the 
eagerness  and  anxiety  with  which  his  mind  grappled 
with  the  problem  of  how  to  introduce  the  next.  The 
French  consul,  too,  was  of  the  gathering,  and  I 
don't  know  why,  but  life,  somehow,  would  not  have 

2q6 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

seemed  what  it  was  that  day  if  the  French  consul 
had  not  been  unmistakably  a  German.  He  had 
brought  with  him  a  bouquet  of  pretty  daughters 
whose  English  accent  and  complexions  (their  mother 
was  English)  and  French  deportment  made  of  them 
rather  fascinating  racial  enigmas.  Mrs.  Belding 
liked  the  girls  but  confided  to  me  that  in  general 
she  considered  the  foreign  manner  all  "  French 
jeune  filledlesticks."  Mrs.  Hammerton,  a  tall,  dis- 
tinguished-looking, dark-haired  English  woman  of 
thirty,  was  perishing — so  Mrs.  Belding  almost  at 
once  informed  me — for  a  cigar.  She  had  an  aged 
mother,  had  had  a  romance  (of  which  no  one  spoke, 
declared  ]\Irs.  Belding  as  she  spoke  of  it),  and 
adored  Mexican  cigars.  Almost  immediately  upon 
my  meeting  her  she  let  me  know  in  the  prettiest,  most 
cultivated  of  voices  that  Mrs.  Belding  was  in  the 
habit  of  getting  tight. 

There  were  two  reasons  for  Mrs.  Hammerton's 
postponing  just  then  the  longed-for  cigar.  One  was 
the  Rev.  Luke  M.  Hacket,  and  the  other  was  his 
wife.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hacket,  with  an  ever-growing 
band  of  little  Hackets,  had  lived  for  years  at  Bar- 
ranca at  the  expense  of  many  worthy  and  unintel- 
ligent persons  at  home.  They  were  there,  all  uncon- 
scious of  their  insolence,  for  the  purpose  of  trying 

207 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

to  seduce  Roman  Catholics  away  from  their  belief 
and  supplying  them  with  another;  of  substitu- 
ting a  somewhat  colorless  and  unmagnetic  expres- 
sion of  the  Christian  idea  for  one  that  satisfies  not 
only  some  of  the  Mexican's  alert  senses,  but  his 
imagination  as  well.  That  these  efforts  at  conver- 
sion met  with  scarcely  any  success  except  during  a 
few  weeks  before  Christmas  (after  which  there  was 
always  an  abrupt  stampede  to  Rome),  did  not  much 
concern  them  as  long  as  Mrs.  Racket's  lectures  in 
native  costume  in  the  basements  of  churches  at  home 
hypnotized  the  faithful  into  contributing  to  an  in- 
stitution for  which  the  term  "  futile  "  is  far  too 
kind.  As  every  child  of  the  Rev.  and  Mrs.  Luke 
Racket  received  from  the  board  a  salary  of  its  own, 
the  worthy  couple  had  not  been  idle,  and  in  ad- 
dition to  this  simple  method  of  swelling  their  rev- 
enue, the  good  man  did  a  tidy  little  business  in 
vanilla — buying  that  fragrant  bean  at  much  less 
than  its  market  value  from  the  poor  and  ignorant 
Indians  to  whom  he  distributed  tracts  they  could 
not  read.  Whenever  another  little  Racket  arrived, 
he  told  the  board,  but  the  incredibly  gullible  body 
knew  nothing  of  his  interest  in  the  vanilla  market. 
As  I  was  a  stranger — he  took  me  in.  That  is  to 
say,  he  wished  me  a  happy  new  year  and  ".touche.d  " 

.208 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

me  for  five  dollars — to  go  toward  the  purchase  of 
a  new  organ  for  his  Sunday  school.  I  and  my 
money  were  soon  parted.  Only  afterwards  did  my 
hostess  have  a  chance  to  tell  me  that  among  the 
colony  the  new  organ  was  an  old  joke — that  for 
many  years  tourists  and  visitors  had  contributed  to 
its  sweeter  and,  as  yet,  unheard  melodies. 

What  was  it?  What  is  it?  No  one  believed  in 
his  creed  nor  had  the  slightest  interest  in  it.  What 
lingering,  reminiscent,  perhaps  in  some  instances 
atavistic  misgiving  and  3earning  to  reverence, 
prompted  these  ill-assorted  exiles  to  treat  with  a  cer- 
tain deference  a  person  whom  they  really  laughed 
at?  There  was  an  unsuspected  pathos  in  it — the 
pathos  of  a  world  that  involuntarily  clutches  at  the 
straw  it  knows  to  be  but  yet  a  straw — the  pathos 
of  the  exile  who  for  the  moment  suffers  even  the 
distasteful  if  it  in  some  way  bridges  the  gulf  between 
him  and  home.  It  was  not  politeness  that  restrained 
Mrs.  Hammerton  from  smoking  until  the  Rackets 
at  last  departed  and  that  had  caused  our  hostess, 
when  she  saw  them  coming,  to  discuss  seriously  with 
her  husband  whether  or  no  she  should  temporarily 
banish  the  eggnog.     What  was  it? 

Mrs.  Blythe,  a  slight,  pretty  woman  prettily 
dressed  had  come  in  from  her  husband's  ranch  the 

209 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

week  before  for  the  holidays.  In  matter-of-fact 
tones  she  as  giving  her  news  to  Mrs.  Garvin, 
whose  son  was  in  charge  of  the  town's  electric  light 
plant. 

"  As  a  rule  one  doesn't  particularly  mind  calen- 
tura  "  (chills  and  fever),  Mrs.  Blythe  was  saying, 
"  although  it  always  leaves  me  rather  weak.  But 
what  was  so  annoying  this  time,  was  the  fact  that 
Jack  and  I  both  had  it  at  once  and  there  wasn't  any- 
body to  take  care  of  us.  Delfina,  the  cook,  chose 
that  moment,  of  all  moments,  to  get  bitten  in  the 
calf  of  her  leg  by  a  snake.  Horrid  woman,  Delfina 
— I'm  sure  she  did  it  on  purpose.  Of  course  she 
was  much  worse  than  useless,  for  I  had  to  take  care 
of  her — dose  her  with  ammonia  and  cut  live  chickens 
in  two  and  bind  them  on  the  place.  You  know — the 
hundred  and  fifty  things  one  always  does  when  they 
get  bitten  by  snakes.  If  Joaquin  the  mayordomo 
had  been  around,  I  shouldn't  have  cared.  He  knows 
how  to  cook  in  a  sort  of  way,  and  then,  besides, 
I  shouldn't  have  been  so  worried  about  the  coffee 
picking.  But  poor  Joaquin  was  in  jail  for  stabbing 
his  wife — yes,  she  died — and  the  jefe  wouldn't  let 
him  out  although  I  sent  in  a  note  saying  how  much 
we  needed  him  for  the  next  few  weeks.  It  was 
deliberately  disobliging  of  the  jefe  because  we've  had 

2IO 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

him  to  dinner  several  times  and  afterwards  Jack 
always  played  cards  with  him  and  let  him  cheat. 
My  temperature  didn't  go  above  a  hundred  and  two 
and  a  half,  but  Jack's  was  a  hundred  and  five  off 
and  on  for  three  or  four  days,  and  when  you  pass 
the  hundred  mark,  two  and  a  half  degrees  make  a 
great  deal  of  difference.  He  was  delirious  a  lot 
of  the  time  and  of  course  I  couldn't  let  him  fuss 
about  the  kitchen  stove.  The  worst  part  was  hav- 
ing to  crawl  out  of  bed  and  drag  over  to  the  tanks 
every  afternoon  to  measure  the  coffee  when  the 
pickers  came  in.  With  Joaquin  gone,  there  was  no- 
body left  who  could  read  the  lists  and  record  the 
amounts.  Then  just  as  the  quinine  gave  out,  the 
river  rose  and  no  one  could  go  to  the  village  for 
more.  Coming  at  that  time  of  year,  it  was  all  really 
very  annoying,"  she  declared  lightly  and  passed  on 
to  something  else. 

"  Yes,  that  was  how  I  caught  this  bad  cold," 
another  woman — whose  husband  manufactured  cof- 
fee sacks — was  explaining  to  some  one.  "  There  was 
the  worst  kind  of  a  norther  that  night ;  I  would  have 
been  soaked  to  the  skin  even  if  I  hadn't  slipped  on 
a  stone  in  the  dark  and  fallen  into  the  brook,  and 
when  I  finally  reached  their  hut  I  forgot  the  con- 
dition I   was  in.     The  poor  little  thing — she  was 

211 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

only  four — was  absolutely  rigid  and  having  convul- 
sion after  convulsion.  Her  screams  were  frightful — 
it  was  impossible  to  control  her — to  get  her  to  tell 
what  the  matter  was,  and  nobody  knew  what  had 
happened.  She  had  simply  given  a  shriek  of  terror 
and  gone  into  convulsions.  There  was  nothing  to 
do — but  nothing — nothing.  At  the  end  of  an  hour 
and  a  half  she  gave  a  final  shriek  and  died,  and  when 
her  poor  little  clenched  fists  relaxed,  we  found  in 
one  of  them  a  dead  scorpion.  By  that  time  I  had 
begun  to  be  very  chilly  and  of  course  it  ended  in  a 
bad  cold.     Two  lumps  please  and  no  milk." 

A  servant  in  a  starched  skirt  of  watermelon  pink 
and  a  starched  white  upper  garment  like  a  dressing 
sack  glided  out  to  help  with  the  tea  and  cakes.  A 
blue  rebozo  was  draped  about  her  neck  and  shoul- 
ders, her  black  hair  hung  to  within  a  foot  and  a 
half  of  the  floor  in  two  fat  braids,  and  in  it,  be- 
hind her  right  ear,  was  a  pink  camelia  the  color  of 
her  skirt.  Her  bare  feet  were  thrust  into  slippers 
without  heels  or  backs  and  as  she  slipped  about  from 
chair  to  chair  they  made  a  slight  dragging  sound  on 
the  tiles.  Everyone  said  good  afternoon  to  her  as 
she  handed  the  teacups,  at  which  she  smiled  and 
replied  in  a  respectful  fashion  that  was,  however, 
perfectly  self-possessed. 

212 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

"  Did  you  hear  about  those  people  named  Jackson 
who  were  here  for  a  few  days  last  month?"  Mrs. 
Belding  asked  of  the  party  in  general.  "  You  know 
they  ended  up  at  Cuernavaca  and  took  a  furnished 
house  there  meaning  to  stay  all  winter.  Well,  they 
stayed  five  days  and  then  left — furious  at  Mexico 
and  everyone  in  it."  And  she  went  on  with  con- 
siderable art  and  humor  to  sketch  the  brief  career 
of  the  Jacksons.  While  they  were  at  the  hotel, 
before  they  took  possession  of  their  house,  she 
told  us,  Mrs.  Jackson  had  engaged  servants — a 
mozo,  two  maids  and  a  cook.  The  cook  she 
stole  from  the  Dressers.  It  wasn't  at  all  nice  of 
her  to  steal  the  cook  as  Mrs.  Dresser  had  gone 
through  a  lot  of  bother  for  her  about  the  renting 
of  the  house  and  had  helped  her  to  get  the  other 
servants.  But  Mrs.  Jackson  offered  the  creature 
two  dollars  more  a  month,  and  although  she  had 
lived  at  the  Dressers  for  six  years,  she  deserted 
them  with  a  low,  glad  cry.  Poor  Mrs.  Dresser 
rushed  over  to  the  Moons  and  sobbed  when  she  told 
about  it. 

"  Don't  you  worry,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Moon. 
"  Leave  that  Jackson  viper  to  me;  I'll  fix  her.  They 
move  in  this  afternoon — I'm  going  up  there  to  tea — 
and  I  promise  you  that  you'll  have  your  wall-eyed 

213 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

old  dish-smasher  hovering  over  the  brasero  in  your 
kitchen  by  noon  to-morrow." 

Apparently  Mrs,  Moon  did  go  to  the  Jacksons  for 
tea  and  made  herself  most  agreeable.  "  You  may 
not  believe  it,  but  she  really  can  once  in  a  while," 
Mrs.  Belding  interjected.  And  as  Mrs.  Jackson 
had  been  conducting  a  Mexican  establishment  for 
about  two  hours,  IVIrs.  Moon  gave  her  all  kinds  of 
advice  on  the  way  to  get  along  with  the  servants, 
ending  with :  "  Of  course  you  must  never  let  the 
maids  go  out  after  dark  even  with  their  mothers, 
and  it's  fatal  to  give  them  breakfast.  We  simply 
don't  do  it  in  Mexico — not  so  much  as  a  drop  of 
coffee  until  noon.  Breakfast  always  makes  Mexi- 
cans insolent."  Then  Mrs.  Moon,  feeling  that  she 
was  perhaps  overdoing  it,  left  while  she  saw  that 
Mrs.  Jackson  was  drinking  it  in  in  great,  death- 
dealing  gulps. 

It  was  bad  enough  that  night,  Mrs.  Belding  ran 
on,  when  the  cook  and  one  of  the  maids  tried  to  go 
to  the  serenata  in  the  plaza.  On  the  strength  of 
the  extra  two  dollars  the  cook  had  bought  a  new 
rebozo  and  wanted  to  wear  it,  and  as  there  was  no 
reason  on  earth  why  they  shouldn't  go  to  the  serena- 
ta, they  were  mystified  and  angry  at  Mrs.  Jackson's 
serenely  declaring  "  No,  no,"  and  locking  them  in. 

214 


VIVA   MEXIC©! 

But  the  great  seal  of  the  Jacksons'  fate  was  definitely 
affixed  the  next  morning  when  Mrs.  Jackson,  up 
bright  and  early,  with  kind  firmness,  refused  to  let 
them  make  their  coffee.  Half  an  hour  later  Mrs. 
Moon  experienced  the  bliss  of  seeing  the  mozo,  the 
cook  and  the  two  maids  wandering  past  her  house — 
all  weeping  bitterly.  Long  before  midday  the  cook 
was  back  at  the  Dressers;  and  from  that  moment 
Mrs.  Jackson  was  blacklisted. 

For  five  days  she  struggled  to  engage  new  serv- 
ants, but  she  was  believed  to  be  a  woman  with  a 
"  bad  heart."  No  one  would  go  to  her.  She  sur- 
rendered and  left. 

.  I  did  not  altogether  believe  this  tale  of  Mrs. 
Belding's,  nor  did  I  believe  the  man  who  casually 
told  us  that  a  few  weeks  before,  the  authorities  had, 
just  in  time,  interrupted  a  human  sacrifice  in  an 
Indian  village  some  twenty  or  thirt\'  miles  up  from 
the  coast.  After  nearly  four  hundred  years  of  Chris- 
tianity the  Indians  had,  it  seemed,  dug  up  a  large 
stone  idol  and  attempted  to  revert.  Then,  too,  the 
remark  of  a  young  girl  who  had  been  visiting  in  Vera 
Cruz  struck  me  as  rather  incredible.  "  I  was  there 
for  a  month,"  she  said.  "  Yes,  there  was  some  yel- 
low fever  and  a  great  deal  of  smallpox — but  when 
you're  having  a  good  time,  who  minds  smallpox  ?  " 

215 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

It  was  all  so  new  to  me  in  matter  and  manner,  so 
sprinkled  with  easy  references  to  objects,  scenes,  and 
conditions  I  had  met  with  only  in  highfalutin  sto- 
ries lacking  the  ring  of  truth,  so  ornate  with  "mean- 
dering "  (thank  you,  Robert  Browning),  Spanish 
words  whose  meaning  I  did  not  know.  There  was 
also  among  the  men  much  coffee  talk — a  whole  new 
world  to  one  who  has  always  taken  for  granted  that 
coffee  originates,  roasted,  ground  and  done  up  in 
five-pound  tins  on  a  grocer's  shelves.  But  it  was  all 
true  even  to  the  interrupted  human  sacrifice  and  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  shrubs  among  the  roses  and 
heliotrope  near  the  piazza  were  coffee  trees.  Had 
I  never  seen  the  little  colony  again  I  should  always 
have  remembered  it  as  a  picturesque,  romantic  and 
delightful  thing.  And  how — I  told  myself  as  I  sat 
there  listening  and  looking — they  must,  away  off 
here,  depend  upon  one  another  for  society,  both  in  a 
formal  and  in  an  intimate  sense!  How  they  must 
come  together  and  somewhat  wistfully  try  to  forget 
Mexico  in  talking  of  home  in  their  own  language! 
What  it  is,  after  all,  to  understand  and  be  under- 
stood ! — and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  If  my  first  after- 
noon with  foreigners  in  Mexico  had  been  my  last, 
I  should  have  carried  away  with  me  a  brave,  bright 
colored    little   picture    of    much   charm    and    some 

2i6 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

pathos.  However,  since  then  I  have  spent  with  my 
compatriots  in  this  interesting  land  days  innumer- 
able. 

I  fear  I  am,  for  the  delightful  purposes  of  art, 
unfortunately  unselective.  First  impressions  have 
their  value;  they  have,  indeed,  very  great  value, 
and  of  a  kind  quite  their  own.  As  my  first  im- 
pression of  Americans  in  Mexico  was  the  kind  I 
have  just  been  trying  to  give,  and  as  it  was  to  me 
wholly  interesting  and  more  agreeable  than  not,  I 
ought,  perhaps,  to  let  it  stand ;  but  somehow  I  can't. 
My  inartistic  impulse  to  keep  on  and  tell  all  the 
little  I  know,  instead  of  stopping  at  the  right  place, 
is  too  strong. 

There  are  said  to  be  about  thirty  thousand  Amer- 
ican residents  in  the  Mexican  Republic,  and  the 
men  pursue  vocations  ranging  from  that  of  tramp 
to  that  of  president  of  great  and  successful  business 
ventures.  There  are  American  doctors  and  den- 
tists, brakemen,  locomotive  engineers,  Pullman-car 
conductors,  civil  engineers,  mining  engineers,  "  pro- 
moters," grocers,  hotel  keepers,  dealers  in  curios; 
there  are  American  barkeepers,  lawyers,  stenogra- 
phers, photographers,  artists,  clerks,  electricians, 
and  owners  of  ranches  of  one  kind  or  another  who 
grow  cattle  or  coffee  or  vanilla  or  sugar  or  rubber. 
15  217 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Manj'-  Americans  are  managers  of  some  sort — they 
manage  mines  or  plantations  or  railways,  or  the 
local  interests  of  some  manufacturing  or  business 
concern  in  the  United  States,  One  meets  Amer- 
icans— both  men  and  women — on  the  streets,  In 
hotels,  In  shops,  strolling  or  sitting  in  the  plaza — 
almost  everywhere  in  the  course  of  the  day's  work, 
and  in  the  course  of  the  day's  play,  one  may  drop 
In  at  the  house  of  some  acquaintance  or  friend  and 
have  a  cup  of  tea,  with  the  usual  accompaniments, 
at  four  or  half  past.  I  am  speaking  now  not  of 
the  City  of  Mexico,  whose  American  colony  as  a 
colony  I  know  solely  through  the  "  Society  "  notes 
of  the  Mexican  Herald.  From  that  authentic 
source  he  who  runs  may  read  (or  he  who  reads 
may  run)  that  on  almost  any  afternoon  at  the  large 
entertainment  given  by  Mrs.  Brooks  for  her  popu- 
lar friend,  Mrs.  Crooks,  punch  was  served  at  a 
refreshment  table  quaintly  decorated  with  smilax 
by  the  ever-charming  Mrs.  Snooks.  That  there  are 
agreeable  Americans  living  in  the  city  I  am  sure, 
because  I  have  met  some  of  them  elsewhere.  But 
of  American  society  In  general  there  I  am  only 
competent  to  suspect  that,  like  society  in  most 
places.  It  is  considerably  less  Important  and  en- 
trancing In  reality  than  it  is  In  print. 

2i8 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

In  the  smaller  places,  even  when  there  are  resi- 
dents of  the  United  States  in  numbers  sufficiently 
great  to  be  regarded  as  a  "  colony,"  there  is  abso- 
lutely nothing  that  by  any  stretch  of  imagination 
or  spread  of  printer's  ink  could  be  called  "  Amer- 
ican society."  The  New  Year's  Day  I  have  men- 
tioned seems  to  me  now  a  kind  of  freak  of  nature; 
I  am  at  a  loss  to  account  for  it.  For  since  then 
my  knowledge  of  Americans  in  the  small  towns  has 
become  considerable,  and  they  are  not  in  the  least 
as  I  supposed  they  were.  They  do  not  depend  upon 
one  another ;  they  do  not  come  together  to  talk  wist- 
fully of  home  in  the  mother  tongue;  they  do  not 
understand  one  another,  and  by  one  another  they 
are  not  understood!  There  is  at  best  about  most 
of  their  exceedingly  few  relations  an  atmosphere  of 
petty  and  ungenerous  gossip,  and  at  worst  a  fog — 
a  positive  sand  storm  of  enmity  and  hatred  through 
which  it  takes  a  really  ludicrous  amount  of  delicate 
navigation  successfully  to  steer  oneself.  As  a  body 
they  simply  do  not  meet.  There  are,  instead,  groups 
of  two,  of  three,  of  four,  who  have  tea  together 
(other  forms  of  entertainment  are  rarely  attempted) 
chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  envitrioling  the  others. 
There  are  among  them  agreeable  groups  and  truly 
charming  individuals,   but  when   they  allow  them- 

219 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

selves  to  assimilate  at  all,  it  is  usually  in  a  most 
reluctant,  acid,  and  malnutritious  form  (a  singu- 
larly repulsive  figure  of  speech,  come  to  think  of 
it)  that  does  no  one  any  good.  It  is  not  unamus- 
ing  just  at  first  to  have  a  lady  inform  you  with 
tremulous  lips  and  in  a  tense,  white  voice  that  if 
you  call  on  Mrs.  X.,  you  must  not  expect  to  call 
any  longer  on  her;  and  I  confess  I  have  enjoyed 
learning  in  great  detail  just  why  this  one  is  no 
longer  speaking  to  that,  and  the  train  of  events 
that  led  up  to  Mr.  A.'s  finally  slapping  the  face 
of  Mr.  B.  Yet  there  are  well-defined  limits  to 
intellectual  treats  of  this  nature,  and  one  quickly 
longs  for  entertainment  at  once  less  dramatic  and 
more  varied. 

Among  the  Americans  this  is  difficult  to  get,  al- 
though, as  I  pause  and  recall  with  gratitude  and 
affection  some  of  my  friends  in  Jalapa,  for  instance, 
I  am  tempted  to  retract  this  statement.  The  trou- 
ble lies,  I  feel  sure,  in  the  fact  that,  having  come 
from  widely  dissimilar  parts  of  the  United  States, 
and  having  had  while  there  affiliations,  in  many 
instances,  whose  slight  difference  is  still  great 
enough  to  make  a  great  difference,  they  have  but 
little  in  common.  And  Mexican  towns  are  utterly 
lacking  in  those  diverse  interests  that  at  home  sup- 

220 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ply  the  women  of  even  very  small  communities  with 
so  many  pleasant  and  harmless,  if  artificial,  bonds. 
The  Mexican  theater  is  crude  and  impossible — even 
it  the  fractious  ladies  knew  Spanish  sufficiently  well 
to  follow  rapid  dialogue  with  enjoyment,  which 
they  rarely  do.  The  occasional  traveling  opera 
company,  with  one  wind-busted,  middle-aged  star 
who  twenty-five  years  ago  was  rumored  to  have  been 
well  received  in  Rio  de  Janeiro,  is  a  torture;  there 
are  no  notable  piano  or  song  recitals,  no  King's 
Daughters  or  other  pet  charities,  no  D.  A.  R.'s, 
no  one  to  interpret  the  "  Ring  and  the  Book,"  or 
the  "  Ring  of  the  Niebelungen,"  no  one  to  give 
chafing-dish  lectures  or  inspire  enthusiasm  for  things 
like  the  etchings  of  Whistler  and  the  economical 
cremation  of  garbage,  the  abolishment  of  child  labor, 
and  the  encouragement  of  the  backyard  beautiful. 
Beyond  the  slight  and  monotonous  cares  of  house- 
keeping on  a  small  scale,  there  is  little  to  occupy 
their  time;  there  are,  in  a  word,  no  varied  outlets 
available  for  their  normal  socio-intellectual  ener- 
gies, and  of  course  the  distressing  happens.  Even 
the  one  or  two  common  bonds  they  might  have, 
most  unfortunately  act  not  as  bonds  at  all.  The 
"  servant  problem,"  for  instance,  small  as  wages 
are,  serves  only   to   keep   them    farther   apart,   and 

221 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

apparently  friendship  between  two  families  engaged 
in  the  same  kind  of  enterprise  is  almost  impossible. 
Very  rarely  have  I  seen  two  coffee-growers  who 
were  not  virulently  jealous  of  each  other's  successes, 
and  who  would  not,  in  a  business  way,  cut  each 
other's  throats  without  a  qualm  if  by  doing  so  they 
could  come  out  a  few  dollars  ahead. 

Indeed,  from  the  little  I  have  seen  and  the  great 
deal  I  have  heard  of  my  countrymen's  business 
coups  in  Mexico,  I  cannot  believe  that  transplanta- 
tion has  a  tendency  to  elevate  one's  ethics.  It  is, 
perhaps,  unnecessary  to  record  that  I  know  men  in 
Mexico  whose  methods  of  business  are  fastidiously 
honorable  with  Mexican  and  compatriot  alike,  but 
they  are  extremely  rare;  far  more  rare  than  they 
are  at  home.  If  in  Mexico  I  were  forced  to  choose 
between  trusting  in  a  business  matter  to  the  repre- 
sentations of  a  Mexican  whom  I  knew  and  liked 
and  an  American  whom  I  knew  and  liked,  I 
should,  except  in  one  or  two  cases,  where  I  should 
be  betting,  so  to  speak,  on  a  certainty,  trust  the 
Mexican. 

An  always  interesting  phase  of  the  American  in 
Mexico  is  the  annual  invasion  of  the  country,  from 
January  to  March,  by  immense  parties  of  "  person- 
ally conducted  "   tourists   from  the   United   States. 

222 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

In  private  cars — even  in  private  trains — they  de- 
scend every  few  days  upon  the  cities  and  towns  of 
chief  pictorial  and  historic  interest,  and  just  as  the 
American  residents  of  England,  Germany,  Italy, 
and  France  shudder  at  the  ancient  and  honorable 
name  of  "  Thomas  Cook  and  Sons,"  do  the  Amer- 
icans who  have  chosen  Mexico  as  the  land  of  their 
adoption  shrug  and  laugh  at  the  mention  of  "  las 
turistas."  On  general  principles,  to  shrug  and 
sneer — for  in  this  laugh  there  always  lurks  a  sneer 
— merely  because  a  hundred  and  fifty  amiable 
creatures  have  chosen  to  be  herded  from  one  end 
of  a  vast  foreign  country  and  back  again  in  two 
weeks,  would  seem  to  be  narrow  and  pointless. 
But  I  have  grown  to  consider  it,  for  principles 
quite  specific,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  The 
American  resident's  sneer  is  unfortunately  a  help- 
less, ineffectual  one,  but  he  is  without  question 
sometimes  entitled  to  it. 

Somebody  once  wrote  an  article — perhaps  it  was 
a  whole  book — which  he  called  "  The  Psychology 
of  Crowds."  I  did  not  read  it,  but  many  years 
ago,  when  it  came  out,  the  title  imbedded  itself 
in  my  mind  as  a  wonderfully  suggestive  title  that 
didn't  suggest  to  me  anything  at  all.  Since  then 
I  have  had  frequent  occasion   to  excavate   it,   and 

223 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

without  having  read  a  word  of  the  work,  I  am 
convinced  that  I  know  exactly  what  the  author 
meant.  Did  he,  I  often  wonder,  ever  study,  in 
his  study  of  crowds,  a  crowd  of  American  tourists 
in  Mexico?  What  a  misfortune  for  his  book  if  he 
neglected  to!  They  are,  it  seems,  composed  of  the 
most  estimable  units  of  which  one  can  conceive ;  the 
sort  of  persons  who  make  a  "  world's  fair  "  possi- 
ble ;  the  salt  of  the  earth — "  the  backbone  of  the 
nation."  And  yet  when  they  unite  and  start  out 
on  their  travels,  a  kind  of  madness  now  and  then 
seizes  upon  them ;  not  continuously,  and  sometimes 
not  at  all,  but  now  and  then.  Young  girls  who, 
at  home,  could  be  trusted  on  every  occasion  to  con- 
duct themselves  with  a  kind  of  provincial  dignity; 
sensible,  middle-aged  fathers  and  mothers  of  grown- 
up families,  and  old  women  with  white  water- 
waves  and  gray  lisle-thread  gloves,  will  now  and 
then,  when  on  a  tour  in  Mexico,  go  out  of  their 
way  to  do  things  that  make  the  very  peons  blush. 
The  great  majority  of  tourists  are,  of  course,  quiet, 
well-behaved  persons  who  take  an  intelligent  inter- 
est in  their  travels.  It  is  to  the  exception  I  am  re- 
ferring; the  exception  by  whom  the  others,  alas! 
are  judged. 

The  least  of  their  crimes  is  their  suddenly  ac- 

224 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

quired  ir.ania  for  being  conspicuous.  At  home,  in 
their  city  side  streets,  their  humdrum  suburbs,  their 
placid  villages,  they  have  been  content  for  thirty, 
fifty,  seventy  years  to  pursue  their  various  decent 
ways,  legitimately  observed  and  clad  appropriately 
to  their  means  and  station.  But  once  arrived  in  the 
ancient  capital  of  Montezuma,  many  of  them  are 
inspired  in  the  most  astounding  fashion  to  attract 
attention  to  themselves.  On  Sunday  afternoon,  in 
the  crowded  Paseo,  I  have  seen,  for  instance,  in 
cabs,  undoubtedly  respectable  women  from  my 
country  with  enormous  straw  sombreros  on  their 
heads,  and  about  their  shoulders  those  brilliant  and 
hideous  "  Mexican  "  sarapes — woven  for  the  tour- 
ist trade,  it  is  said,  in  Germany.  All  the  rest  of 
the  world  was,  of  course,  in  its  Paris  best,  and 
staring  at  them  with  amazed  eyes.  In  Mexico  the 
only  possible  circumstance  under  which  a  native 
woman  of  any  position  whatever  would  wear  a  peon 
hat  would  be  a  hot  day  in  the  depths  of  the  country, 
were  she  forced  to  travel  in  an  open  vehicle  or  on 
horseback.  As  for  sarapes,  they,  of  course,  are 
worn  only  by  men.  The  effect  these  travelers  pro- 
duced upon  the  local  mind  was  somewhat  analo- 
gous to  that  which  a  party  of  Mexican  ladies  would 
produce  upon  the  mind  of  New  York  should  they 

225 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

decide  to  drive  up  Fifth  Avenue  wearing  police- 
men's helmets  and  variegated  trousers.  Only  Mex- 
ican women  would  never  do  the  one,  while  Amer- 
ican women  frequently,  from  motives  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  account  for,  do  the  other. 

Then,  once  in  a  small  town  to  which  large  par- 
ties rarely  go,  I  saw  half  a  dozen  men  and  women 
suddenly  detach  themselves  from  their  crowd  on 
being  told  that  a  certain  middle-aged  man,  bidding 
good-by  to  some  guests  at  his  front  door,  was  the 
governor  of  the  state.  At  a  distance  of  from  ten 
to  fifteen  feet  of  him  they  deliberately  focused 
their  kodaks  on  the  group  and  pressed  the  button. 
Afterwards  I  asked  one  of  the  men  with  whom 
the  governor  had  been  talking,  if  the  governor  had 
commented  upon  the  matter.  "  Why,  yes,"  was  the 
reply.  "  He  said,  with  a  shrug,  *  Obviously  from 
the  United  States,'  and  then  went  on  with  his  con- 
versation." 

At  Tehuacan,  one  winter,  the  women  in  a  party 
of  between  twenty  and  thirty,  quite  innocently  (al- 
though most  commonly)  left  behind  them  an  odious 
impression  that  the  few  resident  Americans  who 
happened  to  be  staying  at  the  place  were  powerless 
to  eradicate.  The  man  in  charge  of  them  could  not 
speak  Spanish,  and  had  with  him  an  interpreter,  a 

226 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Mexican  boy  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  who  knew 
a  moderate  amount  of  English.  He  was  a  pretty- 
eyed,  clever-looking  little  person,  and  the  women 
of  the  party  had  come  to  treat  him  much  as  one 
might  treat  a  pet  animal  of  docile  habits.  They 
would  stroke  and  ruffle  his  shock  of  black  hair, 
pinch  his  cheeks,  "  hold  hands "  with  him  when 
walking  through  the  long  corridors,  adjust  his  red 
cravat  if  it  wasn't  straight,  and  coquettishly  strug- 
gle with  one  another  for  the  privilege  of  strolling 
with  him  in  the  garden.  To  me  it  meant  no  more 
than  a  disagreeably  playful  exhibition  of  bad  taste, 
but  the  Mexicans  in  the  hotel  regarded  a  young 
man  of  eighteen,  in  his  station  of  life,  as  being  of 
a  marriageable  age,  which,  of  course,  he  was,  and 
they  could  not  be  made  to  see  in  the  situation  any- 
thing but  that  the  American  women  were  in  love 
with  him  and  unable  to  conceal  it  in  public.  Some 
of  them  with  young  daughters  talked  of  appealing 
to  the  hotel  proprietor  to  eject  persons  of  this  de- 
scription. In  the  United  States  a  party  of  Mexican 
women  would  under  no  circumstances  hold  hands 
with,  say,  a  bellboy,  or  stroke  the  hair  of  a  waiter. 
In  Puebla  it  is  told  that  some  American  tourists 
ate  their  luncheon  in  the  cathedral,  threw  orange 
peel  and  sardine  tins  on  the  floor,  and  upon  leaving 

227 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

washed  their  hands  in  the  holy  water.  I  don't 
vouch  for  this  story ;  I  merely  believe  it.  And  by 
reason  of  such  things  and  a  hundred  others,  the 
American  resident  is  entitled  to  his  sneer.  For  he 
himself,  in  at  least  his  relations  with  the  natives, 
is  accustomed  to  display  something  of  their  cour- 
tesy, their  dignity.  He  resents  not  only  the  un- 
fortunate and  lasting  impression  many  of  his  com- 
patriots leave  upon  the  populace,  but  its  disastrous 
effect  upon  the  populace  itself.  When  American 
tourists,  armed  with  penknives,  cut  out  squares  of 
Gobelin  tapestry  from  the  furniture  of  the  Presi- 
dent's drawing-room,  it  is  always  a  simple  matter 
for  the  President  to  close  Chapultepec  to  the  pub- 
lic ;  but  when  they  encourage  "  humorous  "  famil- 
iarities with  well-mannered,  unsophisticated  serv- 
ants and  the  lower  classes  generally,  there  is  no 
remedy.  Chiefly  from  constant  contact  with  tour- 
ists, the  cab  drivers  of  the  City  of  Mexico  have 
become  notoriously  extortionate  and  insolent,  and, 
for  the  same  reason,  Cuernavaca,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  little  towns,  not  only  in  Mexico,  but  in 
the  world,  may  soon — tourist-ridden  as  it  is — be 
one  of  the  least  attractive.  There,  among  the  cab- 
men, the  hotel  employees,  the  guides,  and  the  mozos 
who  have  horses  for  hire,  the  admirable  native  man- 

228 


VIVA   MEXICO? 

ner  has  lamentably  deteriorated.  Egged  on  by  un- 
derbred Americans,  many  of  them  have  themselves 
become  common,  impudent,  and  a  bore.  They  no 
longer  suggest  Mexico.  One  might  almost  as  well 
"  see  Naples  and  die." 


XIII 

WHEN  my  first  New  Year's  party  dispersed, 
I  walked  back  to  the  center  of  the  town 
with  a  man  who  had  lived  for  many  years 
in  Mexico,  who  had  been  everywhere  and  had  done 
everything,  and  who  seemed  to  know  something 
funny  or  tragic  or  scandalous  about  everybody  in 
the  world.  He  loved  to  talk,  to  describe,  to  recall ; 
and  while  we  had  some  drinks  together  at  a  cafe 
under  the  sky-blue  portales,  he  aroused  my  interest 
in  people  I  never  had  heard  of  and  never  should 
see.  He  told  me,  among  other  things,  about  the 
Trawnbeighs. 

This,  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember,  is  what  he 
told  me  about  the  Trawnbeighs: 

The  Trawnbeighs,  he  said,  were  the  sort  of  peo- 
ple who  "  dressed  for  dinner,"  even  when,  as  some- 
times happened,  they  had  no  dinner  in  the  house 
to  dress  for.  It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that 
the  Trawnbeighs  were  English.  Indeed,  on  look- 
ing back,  I  often  feel  that  to  my  first  apparently 
flippant  statement  it  is  unnecessary  to  add  anything. 

230 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

For  to  one  who  knew  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh, 
Edwina,  Violet,  Maud,  and  Cyril,  it  was  the  first 
and  last  word  on  them;  their  alpha  and  omega, 
together  with  all  that  went  between.  Not  that  the 
statement  is  flippant — far  from  it.  There  is  in  it 
a  seriousness,  a  profundity,  an  immense  philosophic 
import.  At  times  it  has  almost  moved  me  to  lift 
my  hat,  very  much  as  one  does  for  reasons  of  state, 
or  religion,  or  death. 

This,  let  me  hasten  to  explain,  is  not  at  all  the 
way  I  feel  when  I  put  on  evening  clothes  myself, 
which  I  do  at  least  twice  out  of  my  every  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  opportunities.  No  born 
American  could  feel  that  way  about  his  own  dress 
coat.  He  sometimes  thinks  he  does ;  he  often — and 
isn't  it  boresome! — pretends  he  does,  but  he  really 
doesn't.  As  a  matter  of  unimportant  fact,  the  born 
American  may  have  "  dressed  "  every  evening  of 
his  grown-up  life.  But  if  he  found  himself  on  an 
isolated,  played-out  Mexican  coffee  and  vanilla  finca, 
with  a  wife,  four  children,  a  tiled  roof  that  leaked 
whenever  there  was  a  "  norther,"  an  unsealed  sala 
through  the  bamboo  partitions  of  which  a  cold,  wet 
wind  howled  sometimes  for  a  week  at  a  time,  with 
no  money,  no  capacity  for  making  any,  no  "  pros- 
pects "   and   no   cook — under   these   depressing  cir- 

231 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

cumstances  It  Is  impossible  to  conceive  of  an  Amer- 
ican dressing  for  dinner  everj-^  night  at  a  quarter 
before  seven  in  any  spirit  but  one  of  ghastly  humor. 

With  the  Trawnbeighs'  performance  of  this  sa- 
cred rite,  however,  irony  and  humor  had  nothing 
to  do.  The  Trawnbeighs  had  a  robust  sense  of 
fun  (so,  I  feel  sure,  have  pumpkins  and  turnips 
and  the  larger  varieties  of  the  nutritious  potato 
family)  ;  but  humor,  when  they  didn't  recognize  it, 
bewildered  them,  and  it  always  struck  them  as  just 
a  trifle  underbred  when  they  did. 

Trawnbeigh  had  come  over  to  Mexico — "  come 
out  from  England,"  he  would  have  expressed  It — 
as  a  kind  of  secretary  to  his  cousin.  Sir  Somebody 
Something,  who  was  building  a  harbor  or  a  rail- 
way or  a  canal  (I  don't  believe  Trawnbeigh  him- 
self ever  knew  just  what  it  was)  for  a  British 
company  down  In  the  hot  country.  Mrs.  Trawn- 
beigh, with  her  young,  was  to  follow  on  the  next 
steamer  a  month  later ;  and  as  she  was  in  mid-ocean 
when  Sir  Somebody  suddenly  died  of  yellow  fever, 
she  did  not  learn  of  this  inopportune  event  until 
it  was  too  late  to  turn  back.  Still  I  doubt  whether 
she  would  have  turned  back  If  she  could.  For,  as 
Trawnbeigh  once  explained  to  me,  at  a  time  when 
they  literally  hadn't  enough  to  eat   (a  hail  storm 

232 


VIVA    MF.XTCO! 

had  not  only  destroyed  his  coffee  crop,  but  had 
frozen  the  roots  of  most  of  his  trees,  and  the  price 
of  vanilla  had  fallen  from  ten  cents  a  bean  to  three 
and  a  half),  leaving  England  at  all,  he  explained, 
had  necessitated  "  burning  their  bridges  behind 
them."  He  did  not  tell  me  the  nature  of  their 
bridges,  nor  whether  they  had  made  much  of  a 
blaze.  In  fact,  that  one  vague,  inflammatory  allu- 
sion was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  personal  con- 
fidence Trawnbeigh  was  ever  known  to  make  in  all 
his  fifteen  years  of  Mexican  life. 

The  situation,  when  he  met  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh 
and  the  children  on  the  dock  at  Vera  Cruz,  was 
extremely  drcar}%  and  at  the  end  of  a  month  It 
had  grown  much  worse,  although  the  Trawnbelghs 
apparently  didn't  think  so.  They  even  spoke  and 
wrote  as  if  their  affairs  were  "  looking  up  a  bit." 
For,  after  a  few  weeks  of  visiting  among  kindly 
compatriots  at  Vera  Cruz  and  Rebozo,  Mrs. 
Trawnbeigh  became  cook  for  some  English  engi- 
neers (there  were  seven  of  them)  in  a  sizzling, 
mosqultoey,  feverish  mudhole  on  the  Isthmus  of 
Tehuantepec.  The  Trawnbelghs  didn't  call  it 
"  cook,"  neither  did  the  seven  engineers.  I  don't 
believe  the  engineers  even  thought  of  it  as  cook. 
(What  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh  thought  of  it  will  never 
16  233 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

be  known.)  How  could  they  when  that  lady,  after 
feeding  the  four  little  Trawnbeighs  (or  rather  the. 
four  young  Trawnbeighs ;  they  had  never  been 
little)  a  meal  I  think  they  called  "  the  nursery 
tea,"  managed  every  afternoon,  within  the  next  two 
hours,  first  to  create  out  of  nothing  a  perfectly 
edible  dinner  for  nine  persons,  and,  secondly,  to 
receive  them  all  at  seven  forty-five  in  a  red-striped, 
lemon  satin  ball  gown  (it  looked  like  poisonous, 
wall  paper),  eleven  silver  bangles,  a  cameo  neck- 
lace, and  an  ostrich  tip  sprouting  from  the  top 
of  her  head.  Trawnbeigh,  too,  was  in  evening 
clothes.  And  they  didn't  call  it  cooking;  they 
spoke  of  it  as  "  looking  after  the  mess  "  or  "  keep- 
ing an  eye  on  the  young  chaps'  livers."  Never- 
theless, Mrs.  Trawnbeigh,  daughter  of  the  late  the 
Honorable  Cyril  Cosby  Godolphin  Dundas  and  the 
late  Clare  Walpurga  Emmeline  Moate,  cooked — 
and  cooked  hard — for  almost  a  year;  at  the  end  of 
which  time  she  was  stricken  with  what  she  was 
pleased  to  refer  to  as  "  a  bad  go  of  fevah." 

Fortunately,  they  were  spared  having  to  pass 
around  the  hat,  although  it  would  have  amounted 
to  that  if  Trawnbeigh  hadn't,  after  the  pleasant 
English  fashion,  come  into  some  money.  In  the 
United  States  people  know  to  a  cent  what  they  may 

234 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

expect  to  Inherit,  and  then  they  sometimes  don't 
get  it ;  but  in  England  there  seems  to  be  an  endless 
succession  of  retired  and  unmarried  army  officers 
who  die  every  little  while  in  Jermyn  Street  and 
leave  two  thousand  pounds  to  a  distant  relative 
they  have  never  met.  Something  like  this  happened 
to  Trawnbeigh,  and  on  the  prospect  of  his  legacy 
he  was  able  to  pull  out  of  the  Tehuantepec  mud- 
hole  and  restore  his  wife  to  her  usual  state  of  health 
in  the  pure  and  bracing  air  of  Rebozo. 

Various  things  can  be  done  with  two  thousand 
pounds,  but  just  what  shall  be  done  ought  to  de- 
pend very  largely  on  whether  they  happen  to  be 
one's  first  two  thousand  or  one's  last.  Trawnbeigh, 
however,  invested  his  ("  interred  "  would  be  a  more 
accurate  term)  quite  as  if  they  never  would  be 
missed.  The  disposition  to  be  a  country  gentle- 
man was  in  Trawnbeigh's  blood.  Indeed,  the  first 
impression  one  received  from  the  family  was  that 
everything  they  did  was  in  their  blood.  It  never 
seemed  to  me  that  Trawnbeigh  had  immediately 
sunk  the  whole  of  his  little  fortune  in  an  old,  small, 
and  dilapidated  coffee  place  so  much  because  he 
was  dazzled  by  the  glittering  financial  future  the 
shameless  owner  (another  Englishman,  by  the  way) 
predicted  for  him,  as  because  to  own  an  estate  and 

235 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

live  on  it  was,  so  to  speak,  his  natural  element. 
He  had  tried,  while  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh  was  cook- 
ing on  the  Isthmus,  to  get  "  something  to  do."  But 
there  was  really  nothing  in  Mexico  he  could  do. 
He  was  splendidly  strong,  and  in  the  United  States 
he  very  cheerfully,  and  with  no  loss  of  self-respect 
or  point  of  view,  would  have  temporarily  shoveled 
wheat  or  coal,  or  driven  a  team,  or  worked  on  the 
street  force,  as  many  another  Englishman  of  noble 
lineage  has  done  before  and  since ;  but  in  the  tropics 
an  Anglo-Saxon  cannot  be  a  day  laborer.  He  can't 
because  he  can't.  And  there  was  in  Mexico  no 
clerical  position  open  to  Trawnbeigh  because  he 
did  not  know  Spanish.  (It  is  significant  that  after 
fifteen  consecutive  years  of  residence  in  the  coun- 
try, none  of  the  Trawnbeighs  knew  Spanish.)  To 
be,  somehow  and  somewhere,  an  English  country 
gentleman  of  a  well-known,  slightly  old-fashioned 
type,  was  as  much  Trawnbeigh's  destiny  as  it  is 
the  destiny  of,  say,  a  polar  bear  to  be  a  polar  bear 
or  a  camel  to  be  a  camel.  As  soon  as  he  got  his 
two  thousand  pounds  he  became  one. 

When  I  first  met  them  all  he  had  been  one  for 
about  ten  years.  I  had  recently  settled  in  Trawn- 
beigh's neighborhood,  which  in  Mexico  means  that 
my  ranch  was  a  hard  day-and-a-half  ride  from  his, 

236 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

over  roads  that  are  not  roads,  but  merely  ditches 
full  of  liquefied  mud  on  the  level  stretches,  and 
ditches  full  of  assorted  boulders  on  the  ascent.  So, 
although  we  looked  neighborly  on  a  small  map,  I 
might  not  have  had  the  joy  of  meeting  the  Trawn- 
beighs  for  years  if  my  mule  hadn't  gone  lame  one 
day  when  I  was  making  the  interminable  trip  to 
Rebozo.  Trawnbeigh's  place  was  seven  miles  from 
the  main  road,  and  as  I  happened  to  be  near  the 
parting  of  the  ways  when  the  off  hind  leg  of  Cata- 
lina  began  to  limp,  I  decided  to  leave  her  with  my 
mozo  at  an  Indian  village  until  a  pack  train  should 
pass  by  (there  is  always  some  one  in  a  pack  train 
who  can  remove  a  bad  shoe),  while  I  proceeded  on 
the  mozo's  mule  to  the  Trawnbeighs'.  My  usual 
stopping  place  for  the  night  was  five  miles  farther 
on,  and  the  Indian  village  was — well,  it  was  an 
Indian  village.  Time  and  again  I  had  been  told  of 
Trawnbeigh's  early  adventures,  and  I  felt  sure  he 
could  "  put  me  up  "  (as  he  would  have  said  him- 
self) for  the  night.  He  "  put  me  up  "  not  only 
that  night,  but  as  my  mozo  didn't  appear  until  late 
the  next  afternoon,  a  second  night  as  well.  And 
when  I  at  last  rode  away,  it  was  with  the  feeling 
of  having  learned  from  the  Trawnbeighs  a  great 
lesson. 

237 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

In  the  first  place  they  couldn't  have  expected  me ; 
they  couldn't  possibly  have  expected  anyone.  And 
it  was  a  hot  afternoon.  But  as  it  was  the  hour  at 
which  people  at  "  home  "  dropped  In  for  tea,  Mrs. 
Trawnbeigh  and  her  three  plain,  heavy  looking 
daughters  were  perfectly  prepared  to  dispense  hospi- 
tality to  any  number  of  mythical  friends.  They  had 
on  hideous  but  distinctly  "  dressy  "  dresses  of  amaz- 
ingly stamped  materials  known,  I  believe,  as  "  sum- 
mer silks,"  and  they  were  all  four  tightly  laced. 
Current  fashion  in  Paris,  London,  and  New  York 
by  no  means  insisted  on  small,  smooth,  round  waists, 
but  the  Trawnbeigh  women  had  them  because  (as 
it  gradually  dawned  on  me)  to  have  had  any  other 
kind  would  have  been  a  concession  to  anatomy  and 
the  weather.  To  anything  so  compressible  as  one's 
anatomy,  or  as  vulgarly  impartial  as  the  weather, 
the  Trawnbeighs  simply  did  not  concede.  I  never 
could  get  over  the  feeling  that  they  all  secretly  re- 
garded weather  in  general  as  a  kind  of  popular  in- 
stitution, of  vital  importance  only  to  the  middle  class. 
Cyril,  an  extremely  beautiful  young  person  of 
twenty-two,  who  had  been  playing  tennis  (by  him- 
self) on  the  asoleadero,  was  in  "  flannels,"  and 
Trawnbeigh  admirably  looked  the  part  in  gray, 
middle-aged  riding  things,  although,  as  I  discovered 

238 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

before  leaving,  their  stable  at  the  time  consisted  of 
one  senile  burro  with  ingrowing  hoofs. 

From  the  first  it  all  seemed  too  flawless  to  be  true. 
I  had  never  visited  in  England,  but  I  doubt  if  there 
is  another  country  whose  literature  gives  one  so 
definite  and  lasting  an  impression  of  its  "  home  life." 
Perhaps  this  is  because  the  life  of  families  of  the 
class  to  which  the  Trawnbeighs  belonged  proceeds 
in  England  by  such  a  series  of  definite  and  tradi- 
tional episodes.  In  a  household  like  theirs,  the  un- 
expected must  have  a  devil  of  a  time  in  finding  a 
chance  to  happen.  For,  during  my  visit,  absolutely 
nothing  happened  that  I  hadn't  long  since  chuckled 
over  in  making  the  acquaintance  of  Jane  Austen, 
Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  and  Anthony  TroUope ; 
not  to  mention  Ouida  (it  was  Cyril,  of  course,  who 
from  time  to  time  struck  the  Ouida  note),  and  the 
more  laborious  performances  of  Mrs.  Humphrey 
Ward.  They  all  of  them  did  at  every  tick  of  the 
clock  precisely  what  they  ought  to  have  done.  They 
were  a  page,  the  least  bit  crumpled,  torn  from 
"  Half  Hours  with  the  Best  Authors,"  and  cast, 
dear  Heaven !  upon  a  hillside  in  darkest  Mexico. 

Of  course  we  had  tea  in  the  garden.  There 
wasn't  any  garden,  but  we  nevertheless  had  tea  in 
it.    The  house  would  have  been  cooler,  less  glaring, 

239 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  free  from  the  venomous  little  rodadoras  that 
stung  the  backs  of  my  hands  full  of  microscopic 
polka  dots;  but  we  all  strolled  out  to  a  spot  some 
fifty  yards  away  where  a  bench,  half  a  dozen  shaky, 
homemade  chairs,  and  a  rustic  table  were  most 
imperfectly  shaded  by  three  tattered  banana  trees. 

"  We  love  to  drink  tea  in  the  dingle  dangle," 
Mrs.  Trawnbeigh  explained.  How  the  tea  tray 
itself  got  to  the  "  dingle  dangle,"  L  have  only  a 
general  suspicion,  for  w'hen  we  arrived  it  was  al- 
ready there,  equipped  with  caddy,  cozy,  a  plate  of 
buttered  toast,  a  pot  of  strawberry  jam,  and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  But  try  as  I  might,  I  simply  could  not 
rid  myself  of  the  feeling  that  at  least  two  footmen 
had  arranged  it  all  and  then  discreetly  retired ;  a 
feeling  that  also  sought  to  account  for  the  tray's  sub- 
sequent removal,  which  took  place  while  Trawn- 
beigh, Cyril,  Edwina,  and  I  walked  over  to  inspect 
the  asoleadero  and  washing  tanks.  I  wanted  to  look 
back;  but  something  (the  fear,  perhaps,  of  being 
turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt)   restrained  me. 

With  most  English-speaking  persons  in  that  part 
of  the  world,  conversation  has  to  do  \vith  coffee, 
coffee  and — coffee.  The  Trawnbeighs,  however, 
scarcely  touched  on  the  insistent  topic.  While  we 
sat  on  the  low  wall  of  the  dilapidated  little  asolead- 

240 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

cro  we  discussed  pheasant  shooting  and  the  "  best 
places "  for  haberdashery  and  "  Gladstone  bags." 
Cyril,  as  if  it  were  but  a  matter  of  inclination,  said 
he  thought  he  might  go  over  for  the  shooting  that 
year;  a  cousin  had  asked  him  "  to  make  a  seventh." 
I  never  found  out  what  this  meant  and  didn't  have 
the  nerve  to  ask. 

"  Bertie  shoots  the  twelfth,  doesn't  he?  "  Edwina 
here  inquired. 

To  which  her  brother  replied,  as  if  she  had  shown 
a  distressing  ignorance  of  some  fundamental  date 
in  history,  like  1066  or  12 15,  "  Bertie  always  shoots 
the  twelfth." 

The  best  place  for  haberdashery  in  Mr.  Trawn- 
beigh's  opinion  was  "  the  Stores."  But  Cyril  pre- 
ferred a  small  shop  in  Bond  Street,  maintaining 
firmly,  but  with  good  humor,  that  it  was  not  merely, 
as  "  the  pater  "  insisted,  because  the  fellow  charged 
more,  but  because  one  didn't  ''  run  the  risk  of  seeing 
some  beastly  bounder  in  a  cravat  uncommonly  like 
one's  own."  Trawnbeigh,  as  a  sedate  parent  bor- 
dering on  middle  age,  felt  obliged  to  stand  up  for 
the  more  economical  "  Stores,"  but  it  was  evident 
that  he  reaUy  admired  Cyril's  exclusive  principles 
and  approved  of  them.  Edwina  cut  short  the  ar- 
gument with  an  abrupt  question. 

.      241 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

"  I  say,"  she  inquired  anxiously,  "has  the  dressing 
bell  gone  yet?  "  The  dressing  bell  hadn't  gone,  but 
it  soon  went.  For  Mr.  Trawnbeigh,  after  looking 
at  his  watch,  bustled  off  to  the  house  and  rang  it 
himself.  Then  we  withdrew  to  our  respective 
apartments  to  dress  for  dinner. 

"  I've  put  you  in  the  north  wing,  old  man ;  there's 
always  a  breeze  in  the  wing,"  my  host  declared  as 
he  ushered  nie  into  a  bamboo  shed  they  used  ap- 
parently for  storing  corn  and  iron  implements  of 
an  agricultural  nature.  But  there  was  also  in  the 
room  a  recently  made-up  cot  with  real  sheets,  a  tin 
bath  tub,  hot  and  cold  water  in  two  earthenware 
jars,  and  an  empty  packing  case  upholstered  in  oil- 
cloth. When  Trawnbeigh  spoke  of  this  last  as  a 
"  wash-hand-stand,"  I  knew  I  had  indeed  strayed 
from  life  into  the  realms  of  mid-Victorian  romance. 

The  breeze  Trawnbeigh  had  referred  to  developed 
in  the  violent  Mexican  way,  while  I  was  enjoying 
the  bath  tub,  into  an  unmistakable  norther.  Water 
fell  on  the  roof  like  so  much  lead  and  then  sprang 
off  (some  of  it  did)  in  thick,  round  streams  from  the 
tin  spouts ;  the  wind  screamed  in  and  out  of  the  tiles 
overhead,  and  through  the  "  north  wing's  "  blurred 
windows  the  writhing  banana  trees  of  the  "  dingle 
dangle  "  looked  like  strange  things  one  sees  in  an 

242      ^ 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

aquarium.  As  soon  as  I  could  get  into  my  clothes 
again — a  bath  was  as  far  as  I  was  able  to  live  up  to 
the  Trawnbeigh  ideal — I  went  into  the  sala  where 
the  dinner  table  was  already  set  with  a  really  heart- 
rending attempt  at  splendor.  I  have  said  that  noth- 
ing happened  with  which  I  had  not  a  sort  of  literary 
acquaintance;  but  I  was  wrong.  While  I  was 
standing  there  wondering  how  the  Trawnbeighs 
had  been  able  all  those  years  to  keep  it  up,  a  win- 
dow in  the  next  room  blew  open  with  a  bang.  I 
ran  in  to  shut  it;  but  before  I  reached  it,  I  stopped 
short  and,  as  hastily  and  quietly  as  I  could,  tiptoed 
back  to  the  "  wing."  For  the  next  room  was  the 
kitchen  and  at  one  end  of  it  Trawnbeigh,  in  a 
shabby  but  perfectly  fitting  dress-coat,  his  trousers 
rolled  up  halfway  to  his  knees,  was  patiently  hold- 
ing an  umbrella  over  his  wife's  sacred  dinner  gown, 
while  she — bebangled,  becameoed,  beplumed,  and 
stripped  to  the  buff — masterfully  cooked  our  dinner 
on  the  brasero. 

To  me  it  was  all  extremely  wonderful,  and  the 
wonder  of  it  did  not  lessen  during  the  five  years  in 
which,  on  my  way  to  and  from  Rebozo,  I  stopped 
over  at  the  Trawnbeighs'  several  times  a  year.  For, 
although  I  knew  that  they  were  often  financially  all 
but  down  and  out,  the  endless  red  tape  of  their  daily 

243 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

life  never  struck  me  as  being  merely  a  pathetic  bluff. 
Their  rising  bells  and  dressing  bells,  their  apparent 
dependence  on  all  sorts  of  pleasant  accessories  that 
simply  did  not  exist,  their  occupations  (I  mean  those 
on  which  I  did  not  have  to  turn  a  tactful  back,  such 
as  "  botanizing,"  "  crewel  work,"  painting  horrible 
water  colors  and  composing  long  lists  of  British- 
sounding  things  to  be  "  sent  out  from  the  Stores  "), 
the  informality  with  which  we  waited  on  ourselves 
at  luncheon  and  the  stately,  punctilious  manner  in 
which  we  did  precisely  the  same  thing  at  dinner,  the 
preordained  hour  at  which  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh  and 
the  girls  each  took  a  candle  and  said  good  night, 
leaving  Trawnbeigh,  Cyril,  and  me  to  smoke  a  pipe 
and  "do  a  whisky  peg"  (Trawnbeigh  had  spent 
some  years  in  India),  the  whole  inflexibly  insular 
scheme  of  their  existence  was  more,  infinitely  more, 
than  a  bluff.  It  was  a  placid,  tenacious  clinging  to 
the  straw  of  their  ideal  in  a  great,  deep  sea  of 
poverty,  discomfort,  and  isolation.  And  it  had  its 
reward. 

For  after  fourteen  years  of  Mexican  life,  Cyril 
was  almost  exactly  what  he  would  have  been  had 
he  never  seen  the  place ;  and  Cyril  was  the  Trawn- 
beigh's  one  asset  of  immense  value.  He  was  most 
agreeable  to  look  at,  he  was  both  related  to  and  con- 

244 


VIVA   MF.XirO! 

nected  with  many  of  the  most  historical-sounding 
ladies  and  gentlemen  in  England,  and  he  had  just 
the  limited,  selfish,  amiable  outlook  on  the  world  in 
general  that  was  sure  (granting  the  other  things) 
to  impress  Miss  Irene  Slapp  of  Pittsburg  as  the 
height  of  both  breeding  and  distinction, 

Irene  Slapp  had  beauty  and  distinction  of  her  own. 
Somehow,  although  they  all  "  needed  the  money," 
I  don't  believe  Cyril  would  have  married  her  if  she 
hadn't.  Anyhow,  one  evening  in  the  City  of  Mexico 
he  took  her  in  to  dinner  at  the  British  Legation 
where  he  had  been  asked  to  dine  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  before  the  second  entree,  Miss  Slapp  was 
slightly  in  love  vi^ith  him  and  very  deeply  in  love 
with  the  scheme  of  life,  the  standard,  the  ideal,  or 
whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  he  had  inherited  and 
had  been  brought  up,  under  staggering  difficulties, 
to  represent. 

"  The  young  beggar  has  made  a  pot  of  money  In 
the  States,"  Trawnbeigh  gravely  informed  me  after 
Cyril  had  spent  seven  weeks  in  Pittsburg — whither 
he  had  been  persuaded  to  journey  on  the  Slapp's 
private  train. 

"  And,  you  know  I've  decided  to  sell  the  old 
place,"  he  casually  remarked  a  month  or  so  later. 
"  Yes,  yes,"  he  went  on,  "  the  young  people  are  be- 

245 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ginning  to  leave  us."  (I  hadn't  noticed  any  signs 
of  impending  flight  on  the  part  of  Edwina,  Violet, 
and  Maud.)  "  Mrs.  Trawnbeigh  and  I  want  to  end 
our  days  at  home.  Slapp  believes  there's  gold  on  the 
place — or  would  it  be  petroleum?  He's  welcome  to 
it.  After  all,  I've  never  been  fearfully  keen  on  busi- 
ness." 

And  I  rode  away  pondering,  as  I  always  did,  on 
the  great  lesson  of  the  Trawnbeighs. 


XIV 

EARLY  in  the  eighteenth  century  there  went 
to  Mexico  from  France  a  boy  of  sixteen 
named  Joseph  de  la  Borde.  "  By  his  fortu- 
nate mining  ventures  at  Tlalpujahua,  Tasco,  and 
Zacatecas,"  we  read,  "  he  made  a  fortune  of  forty 
million  pesos."  One  of  these  millions  he  spent  in 
building  a  church  at  Tasco,  and  another  he  spent  in 
building  a  garden  at  Cuernavaca.  This  is  all  I 
know  about  Joseph  de  la  Borde,  or,  as  he  was  called 
in  Mexico,  Jose  de  la  Borda,  except  that  he  died  in 
Cuernavaca  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine  and  that  his 
portrait — a  funny  old  man  in  a  white  wig  and  black 
velvet — hangs  among  the  portraits  of  other  dead  and 
eminent  gentlemen  in  an  obscure  corridor  of  the 
National  Museum.  It  might  be  interesting  to  learn 
what  became  of  the  remaining  thlrtj^-eight  millions ; 
but  then  again  it  might  not.  So  I  haven't  tried  to 
find  out.  It  is  scarcely  probable,  however,  that  at 
a  later  date  he  expressed  himself  more  notably  than 
he  did  in  the  construction  of  El  Jardin  Borda. 
It  lies  on  a  steep  hillside  behind  Cuernavaca,  and 

247 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

even  if  It  were  not  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
tangled,  neglected,  ruined  old  gardens  anywhere,  it 
would  be  lovable  for  the  manner  in  which  it  tried 
so  hard  to  be  a  French  garden  and  failed.  Joseph, 
it  is  clear,  had  the  French  passion  for  formalizing 
the  landscape — for  putting  Nature  into  a  pretty 
strait-jacket;  but  although  he  spent  much  time  and 
a  million  pesos  in  trying  to  do  this  at  Cuernavaca, 
he  rather  wonderfully  did  not  succeed.  No  doubt 
the  result  pleased  him ;  it  surely  ought  to  have.  But 
just  as  surely  it  was  not  the  light,  bright,  definitely 
graceful  result  of  which  his  French  mind  had  con- 
ceived. It  was  always  a  little  precious  to  speak  of 
one  thing  in  terms  of  another,  but  nevertheless  there 
is  about  a  perfect  French  garden  something  very 
musical.  The  Luxembourg  garden  is  musical,  so  is 
the  garden  at  Versailles ;  musical  with  the  kind  of 
music  that  is  as  deliberately  academic  as  it  is  de- 
liberately tuneful.  There  was  every  endeavor  to 
m.ake  the  Jardin  Borda  perform  on  a  small  scale 
with  the  same  blithe  elegance  of  Versailles  and  the 
garden  of  the  Luxembourg;  but  it  was  Mexican  at 
heart.  Perhaps  it  foresaw  Napoleon  III.  At  any 
rate,  although  it  tried  to  be  French,  it  at  the  last 
refused. 

The  situation,  the  flora,  and,  absurd  as  it  may 

248 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

sound,  the  technic  of  the  stone  masons  who  built 
the  architectural  features — the  walls,  the  fountains, 
the  summerhouses,  the  cascades,  and  the  ponds — all 
combine  to  give  the  place  an  individuality,  sometimes 
Spanish,  sometimes  Mexican,  but  French  only  in  the 
same  remote  manner  in  which  Shakespeare  is  Shake- 
speare when  Madame  Bernhardt,  instead  of  exclaim- 
ing, "  Go.  Stand  not  upon  the  order  of  your  going, 
but  go  at  once,"  liquidly  burbles:  "  Allez,  messieurs; 
allez  immediatement — sans  ceremonie!"  It  hangs 
precipitously  on  the  side  of  a  ravine  when  it  should 
have  been  level  (one  is  so  glad  it  is  not),  and  the 
dense,  southern  trees — mangoes  and  sapotes  and 
Indian  laurel — with  which  it  was  planted,  have  long 
since  outgrown  the  scale  of  the  place,  interlaced  and 
roofed  out  the  sky  overhead  with  an  opaque  and 
somber  canopy.  They  now  are  not,  as  they  were  in- 
tended to  be,  decorative  features  of  the  garden,  they 
are  the  garden  itself ;  one  cannot  see  the  trees  for 
the  forest.  In  its  impermeable  shade  there  are  long, 
islanded  tanks  in  which  many  numerous  families  of 
ducks  and  geese  live  a  strangely  secluded,  dignified, 
aristocratic  existence — arbors  of  roses  and  jasmine, 
and  heavy,  broken  old  fountains  that  no  longer  play 
and  splash.  In  fact,  all  the  masonry,  and  to  retain 
itself  on  the  hillside  the  place  had  to  be  a  mass 
17  249 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  masonty,  is  heavy  and  simple,  and  except  for  the 
arbors  there  are  no  longer  any  flowers.  Where  in 
the  days  of  Joseph  there  no  doubt  used  to  be  a 
dazzling  carpet  of  color,  there  is  now  only  a  tangle 
of  coffee  trees.  But  in  Cuernavaca  when  the  purple 
and  red  and  pink  of  growing  things  under  a  pitiless 
sun  become  intolerable,  the  absence  of  color  in  the 
Jardin  Borda,  except  for  its  dark  and  soothing  green, 
is  w^ell  worth  frequently  paying  the  twenty-five 
centavos  the  present  owner  charges  as  an  admittance 
fee. 

In  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  years  there  will  be 
many  fine  old  formal  gardens  in  the  United  States 
— finer  than  the  Borda  ever  w^as.  Under  the  per- 
golas of  some  of  them  there  is  much  tea  and  pleasant 
conversation  and  one  greatly  admires  their  marble 
furniture  imported  from  Italy — their  careful  riot 
of  flowers.  But  at  present  it  Is  difficult  to  forget 
that  their  prevailing  color  is  wealth,  and  to  forget 
it  will  take  at  least  another  century.  If  they  have 
everything  that  Joseph's  garden  lacks,  they  all  lack 
the  thing  it  has.  For  in  its  twilit  arbors  and  all 
along  its  sad  and  silent  terraces  there  is  at  any  hour 
the  same  poetic  mystery  that  even  at  the  ages  of 
eight  and  four  sometimes  used  to  affect  Don  Guil- 
lermo  and  me  when  we  were  turned  loose  to  play 

250 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

and  to  pick  daisies  in  the  Borghese  garden  in  Rome, 
The  Borghese  is  extensive  and  the  Borda  is  tiny,  but 
history  has  strolled  in  both  of  them  and  they  both 
seem  to  have  beautiful,  secret  sorrows. 

I  am  not  like  an  American  woman  tourist  in 
Cuernavaca  (it  was  her  first  week  in  the  countr\0 
who  informed  me  that  she  sat  in  the  hotel  all  day 
because  she  was  so  tired  of  seeing  the  streets  full  of 
Mexicans !  "  You  know,  we  saw  a  great  many 
Mexicans  in  Mexico  City,"  she  added  in  the  ag- 
grieved tone  of  one  who  thinks  it  is  high  time  for  a 
procession  of  Swedes  or  Australians.  But  in  Mex- 
ico, as  elsewhere,  there  are  mornings  and  afternoons 
when  it  is  good  to  be  out  of  range  of  the  human 
voice  and  alone  with  trees,  a  sheet  of  water  however 
small,  and  some  animals. 

Attached  to  the  grounds  is  a  house — a  succession 
of  cool  rooms  on  one  floor,  and  in  passing  the  open 
doors  and  windows  of  the  long,  denuded  sala  as  one 
begins  to  descend  the  main  terrace,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  remember  for  a  moment  that  the  place  was 
lived  in  by  Maximilian  and  Carlotta.  It  is  impos- 
sible, too,  especially  if  the  white  roses  and  jasmine 
of  the  arbor  are  in  bloom,  not  to  pay  the  unfortunate 
lady  and  gentleman  the  tribute  of  a  sentimental 
pang.     In  Mexico  one  often  finds  oneself  thinking 

251 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  Maximilian  and  Carlotta  and,  on  the  whole, 
with  a  kindliness  springing,  I  am  sure,  chiefly  from 
the  facts  that  they  were  young  and  in  love.  For 
politically  they  were  but  a  pair  of  stupid  mistakes. 
Historj'  has  been  kind  to  Maximilian — far  kinder 
than  he  deserved — but  standard  and  respectable 
history  is  so  timorous  of  leaving  a  wrong  impression 
that  it  often  fails  to  leave  any  impression  at  all. 
History  to  be  interesting  and  valuable  should  be  re- 
corded by  persons  of  talent  and  prejudice  or  by 
chambermaids  who  listen  at  keyholes. 

As  it  is  difficult  to  believe  Maximilian  a  scoundrel, 
the  other  belief  most  open  to  one  in  view  of  his  brief 
career,  is  that  he  was  a  dull,  ignorant,  and  fatuous 
young  man  who  thought  it  would  prove  more  divert- 
ing to  be  a  Mexican  emperor  than  an  Austrian  arch- 
duke. His  portrait,  indeed  (the  famous  one  on  horse- 
back now  in  the  National  Palace),  expresses  just 
this  with  unconscious  cruelty.  History  often  speaks 
of  him  as  handsome — an  adjective  that  even  the 
idealized  portrait  in  question  quite  fails  to  justify. 
Without  more  chin  than  Maximilian  ever  had,  one 
can  be  neither  handsome  nor  a  successful  emperor. 
He  was  amiable  and  "  well  disposed,"  but  his  fatuity 
revealed  itself  from  the  first  in  the  mere  fact  of  his 
being  able  to  see  in  himself  a  logical  claimant  to  the 

252 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

throne  of  Mexico  in  the  far-fetched  and  absurd 
reason  that  led  Napoleon  III  and  the  Roir.an 
Catholic  Church  to  select  him.  For  he  was  chosen 
to  adorn  this  precariously  fictitious  seat  because 
Mexico  had  formerly  been  a  Spanish  possession  and 
the  house  of  which  he  was  a  representative  had  ruled 
in  Spain  before  the  accession  of  the  Bourbons!  Na- 
poleon III  naturally  was  not  giving  away  empires 
to  Bourbons,  and  Maximilian  was  supposed  "  to  re- 
unite the  Mexico  of  1863  with  the  monarchical 
Mexico  of  1821."  To  the  party  of  intelligence, 
progress,  and  reform  there  was  about  the  same 
amount  of  right  and  reason  in  this  as  the  inhabitants 
of  France  would  find  in  a  sudden  demand  on  my 
part  to  be  made  their  chief  executive  because  my 
name  happens  to  be  a  French  name, 

Maximilian  "  accepted  "  the  crown  on  two  condi- 
tions. That  he  was  pathetically  ignorant  of  at  least 
the  subject  on  which  he  ought  to  have  been  best  in- 
formed is  clear  from  one  of  them,  and  that  he  was 
dull  becomes  almost  as  evident  from  the  other.  The 
first  provided  that  he  should  be  elected  to  the  throne 
of  Mexico  by  popular  vote;  and  the  second,  that  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  should  give  him  armed  aid  as 
long  as  he  required  it.  Now  anyone  with  the  most 
rudimentary   knowledge  of    Mexico   knows  that  a 

253 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

popular  election  there  is  an  impossibility  and  always 
has  been.  No  one  in  Mexico  is  ever  elected  by  popu- 
lar vote,  or  ever  really  elected  at  all.  It  cannot  be 
done  at  the  present  time  (1908)  any  more  than  it 
could  have  been  w^hen  Maximilian  and  Carlotta  were' 
crowned  in  the  cathedral  in  1864.  The  inhabitants 
of  Mexico,  incredible  as  it  may  sound,  speak  more 
than  fifty  totally  different  languages  and  many  of 
them  have  never  learned  Spanish.  Some  of  them  in 
fact — the  Yaquis  in  Sonera  and  the  Mayas  in  Yuca- 
tan— do  not  even  recognize  the  Mexican  Govern- 
ment, are  still  at  war  with  it  and  are  being  for  this 
reason  rapidly  exterminated,  although  not  as  rapidly 
as  would  be  the  case  if  the  military  exterminators 
did  not  receive  increased  pay  while  engaged  in  the 
congenial  pursuit  of  extermination.  When  one  con- 
siders that  two  years  before  the  proposed  taking  of 
the  census  in  1910,  the  Government  is  planning  a 
gradual  and  elaborate  campaign  of  enlightenment 
in  the  hope  of  allaying  the  suspicions  of  the  super- 
stitious lower  classes  and  making  a  more  or  less  ac- 
curate census  possible,  it  is  clear  that  not  even  a 
political  dreamer  could  seriously  consider  the  feasi- 
bility of  a  genuine  popular  election.  From  what  I 
know  of  many  of  the  inhabitants,  from  what  I  have 
seen  of  their  complete  indifference  to  anything  out- 

254. 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

side  of  their  villages  and  cornfields,  I  think  it  highly 
probable  that  many  thousands  of  them  tilled  their 
land  throughout  the  entire,  futile  "  reign  "  alto- 
gether unaware  of  Maximilian's  existence.  Maxi- 
milian was  not  elected  Emperor  of  Mexico  by  popu- 
lar vote,  although  before  he  learned  something  about 
his  empire,  he  no  doubt  thought  he  had  been. 

As  to  the  second  condition — when  Maximilian 
staked  his  entire  hope  of  success  upon  a  promise  of 
Napoleon  III,  who  had  on  various  occasions  some- 
what conspicuously  shown  himself  to  be  as  danger- 
ous an  adventurer  and  as  unscrupulous  a  liar  as  most 
of  the  other  members  of  his  offensive  family,  Maxi- 
milian did  something  that  may  be  recorded  as  trust- 
ing and  unfortunate,  but  that  is  only  adequately  de- 
scribed as  dull.  Fatuous,  ignorant,  and  dull,  he  not 
only  failed  to  pull  out  Napoleon's  chestnuts,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  fall  into  the  fire.  Except  just  at  first,  he 
was  not  wanted  in  Mexico  even  by  the  clerical  party 
responsible  for  his  being  there;  for  his  refusal  to 
abolish  the  Reform  Laws  and  restore  the  power  of 
the  Church  bitterly  disappointed  the  Church  with- 
out, however,  gaining  for  him  adherents  among  those 
who  had  fought  so  long  to  establish  a  republic. 
Everything  he  did  was  preordained  to  be  wrong.  He 
went  without  a  definite  policy  and  was  incapable  of 

255 


VIVA    MEXICO  I 

evolving  one  after  he  arrived.  His  three  years  In 
Mexico  were  unproductive  of  anything  except  an 
enormous  debt  Incurred  largely  by  the  silly  magnifi- 
cence of  his  court,  a  great  deal  of  bloodshed  and  his 
own  execution.  He  died  bravely,  one  always  reads, 
but  so  do  hundreds  of  other  persons  every  day.  Be- 
fore an  audience  composed  of  the  entire  civilized 
world,  to  die  bravely  ought  not  to  be  a  particularly 
difficult  feat.  As  Alphonse  Daudet  somewhere  says 
of  Frenchmen,  "  They  can  always  be  brave  If  there, 
are  enough  people  looking."  Life  was  not  kind  to 
the  young  Austrian,  but  history  has  been. 

And  yet,  on  the  sad,  silent  terraces  of  the  Jardin 
Borda  one  always  thinks  of  Maximilian  and  Car- 
lotta,  and  pays  them  the  tribute  of  a  sentimental 
pang. 


XV 


TRAVELERS  sometimes  complain  that 
"Mexican  towns  are  exactly  alike;  if  you 
see  one  you've  seen  them  all,"  and  while  I 
cannot  agree  with  the  bromidically  couched  observa- 
tion I  can  understand  why  it  is  made.  They  are  not 
alike,  but  they  are  so  startlingly  different  from 
Northern  towns  that  one  is  at  first  more  impressed 
by  this  fundamental  difiference,  in  which  they  all 
naturally  have  a  family  resemblance,  than  by  the  less 
striking  but  delightful  ways  in  which  they  often 
differ  from  one  another.  Without  exception,  they 
are,  as  art  critics  used  to  say  of  certain  pictures, 
"  painted  in  a  high  key,"  and  where  the  nature  of 
the  site  permits,  their  rectangularity  is  positively 
Philadelphian.  In  their  center  is  a  public  square 
with  a  garden,  rather  formal  in  intention  but  as  a 
rule  old  enough  and  luxuriant  enough  to  have  lost 
its  original  stiffness.  Here  there  are  paths  and 
benches,  trees,  fountains,  flowers,  and  a  flimsy  look- 
ing iron  and  tin  band  stand  one  learns  at  last  to  like. 
At  one  side  is  the  most  important  church ;  the  other 

257 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

three  are  bounded  by  shops  and  arcades.  This  is 
the  plaza.  Every  town  has  one,  many  of  them  have 
several.  But  there  is  always  one  that  more  than  the 
others  is  a  kind  of  pulsating,  civic  heart,  and  it  is  in- 
teresting to  note  how  in  their  dimensions  they  ob- 
serve the  scale  of  their  environment.  Big  towns  have 
big  plazas,  small  towns  have  small  plazas,  villages 
have  tiny  plazas.  In  addition  to  the  plaza  there  is 
often,  in  a  quieter,  more  distant  quarter  of  the  com- 
munity, a  park — a  tangled,  shady,  bird-inhabited 
spot,  with  high  and  aged  trees,  massive  seats  of  stone 
or  cement,  and  a  tranquillity  that  exerts  a  noticeably 
benign  influence  on  all  who  go  to  walk  or  sit  there. 
Whether  the  houses  and  buildings  are  built  of  stone 
or  mortar  or,  as  is  customary  in  the  smaller  places 
of  the  plateau,  of  sun-dried  mud  bricks,  their  effect 
is  the  same,  for  they  are  all  given  a  coat  of  smooth 
stucco  and  then  calcimined  white,  or  a  pale  shade  of 
pink,  blue,  yellow,  buff,  or  green.  Rarely  are  they 
of  more  than  two  stories;  most  of  them  have  bal- 
conies on  the  upper  floor,  all  have  long,  heavily 
barred  windows  on  the  lower,  and  if  it  were  not  for 
their  gayety  of  color,  the  perpetual  fascination  of 
their  flower-filled  patios  of  which  the  passer-by  gets 
tantalizing  glimpses  through  open  doorways,  and  the 
intellectual  interest  of  the  signs  on  the  shops — their 

258 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

uniform  height  and  the  square  simplicity  of  their 
tiesign  might  be  monotonous.  As  it  is,  a  Mexican 
street,  even  when  empty,  is  never  monotonous. 

Besides  the  plaza  and  th.e  park,  there  is  the 
market  place — sometimes  merely  an  open  square  in 
which  the  venders,  under  rectangular  homemade 
parasols,  spread  their  wares  upon  the  ground,  but 
more  often  an  inclosure  equipped  with  long  counters 
and  protected  from  sun  and  rain  by  a  roof.  Except 
in  the  City  of  Mexico,  Guadalajara,  and  Merida,  one 
is  not  conscious  of  "  residence  quarters."  The  "  best 
families  "  (a  term  almost  as  meaningless  and  as  fre- 
quently employed  in  Mexico  as  in  the  United  States) 
live  where  they  please,  and  they  please  to  live  as 
deeply  as  possible  in  the  thick  of  things.  The  largest 
and  most  elaborate  houses  are  often  scattered  be- 
tween shops  and  saloons  along  the  busiest  streets, 
and  when  one  becomes  intimate  with  the  country 
and  its  inhabitants  it  seems  natural  and  agreeable 
that  they  should  be.  For  one  cannot  live  in  Mexico 
without  consciously  or  unconsciously  regarding  the 
superficialities  of  life  from  something  very  like  the 
local  point  of  view.  There  is  about  it  an  infectious 
and  inevitable  quality,  and  I  have  often  been  both 
amused  and  depressed  by  the  manner  in  which 
foreigners  who  accept  the  best  of  everything  in  Mex- 

259 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

ico — who  grow  strong,  and  revel  in  one  of  its  several 
climates,  who  make  a  good  living  there,  who  enjoy 
its  beauty  and  adopt  many  of  its  customs — stupidly 
deny  its  attraction   for   them,   repudiate  their  sym- 
pathy with  it.    It  is  customary,  almost  a  convention, 
to  do  so,  and  one  is  appalled  by  the  tenacity  of  con- 
vention's grasp  upon  the  ordinary  mind — by  the  im- 
pregnable dullness  of  the  normal  intellect.     I  know, 
for  example,  Americans  who  have  lived  happily  in 
Mexico  for  many  years.     They  have,  among  Mexi- 
cans, friends  whom  they  both  respect  and  admire. 
Almost  all  their  interests  in  life  are  focused  some- 
where in  the  country,  and  when  they  are  away  from 
it  they  look  forward  with  gladness  to  the  time  of 
their  return.    Yet,  apparent  as  all  this  is  to  one  who 
associates  with  them,  they  seem  incapable  of  trans- 
lating  experience    into  consciousness   and   conversa- 
tion.   You  see  them  leading  contented  and  successful 
lives,  at  peace  with  their  adopted  land  and  almost 
everything  in  it ;  but  when  they  undertake  to  discuss 
their  environment,  to  formulate  their  opinions,  their 
remarks  are  rarely  valuable  and  never  appreciative. 
Instead  of  simply  trying  to  give  one  something  of  the 
Mexico   they  have   day  by  day,   month  by  month, 
and  year  by  year  met  and  succumbed  to,  they  appear 
to  take  a  pride  in  parading  the  old  geography,  guide- 

260 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

book  and  tourist  dicta  that  in  their  cases,  one  sees  at 
a  glance,  are  not  justified  by  facts. 

"  All  Mexican  servants  are  thieves  and  liars,"  is 
the  characteristic  pronouncement  of  an  American 
woman  w  hose  household  for  sixteen  years  has  been 
admirably  and  economically  run  by  the  same  de- 
voted and  honest  cook. 

"What  a  filthy  lot  they  are!  "  exclaims  her  hus- 
band (who  observes  the  good  old  custom  of  taking 
a  bath  every  Saturday  night  whether  he  needs  it  or 
not),  as  we  ride  through  a  Yucatecan  village  in 
which  most  of  the  Indian  inhabitants  scrub  from 
head  to  foot  and  put  on  clean  clothes  every  day. 

"  I  wouldn't  trust  one  of  them  with  a  cent,"  de- 
clares some  one  else,  who  has  in  his  office  three 
Mexican  clerks  to  whom  he  Implicitly  intrusts  the 
handling  of  thousands  of  dollars. 

"  I  look  upon  them  just  as  I  look  upon  niggers," 
says  a  Southerner — who  not  only  doesn't,  but  who  is 
gratified  by  the  pleasant  position  he  has  achieved  for 
himself  in  local,  native  society.  And  as  such  com- 
ments are  made  with  neither  malicious  intent  nor 
with  the  "  feeling  "  that  would  accompany  them 
were  they  final  deductions  from  a  long  series  of 
painful  experiences,  one  marvels  at  the  phonographic 
monotony  with  which  they  are  endlessly  reproduced. 

261 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

Almost  always  purely  verbal,  there  is  behind  them 
neither  thought  nor  emotion,  and  they  are  irritating 
in  much  the  same  way  that  checks  are  irritating 
■when  carelessly  made  out  and  signed  by  persons  who 
have  nothing  in  the  bank.  They  are,  I  fancy,  con- 
nected with  a  sense  of  patriotism  that  has  grown 
habitual  and  perfunctory,  and  I  mention  them 
merely  by  way  of  illustrating  half  of  my  assertion 
to  the  effect  that  one  absorbs  something  of  Mex- 
ico both  unconsciously  and  with  deliberateness.  A 
young  Englishman  of  my  acquaintance  may  well 
supply  the  other  half. 

It  is  not  generally  realized  that  the  male  inhabi- 
tants of  Great  Britain  do  not  make  a  practice  of 
wearing  drawers,  although  such  is  the  strange,  dis- 
sembled fact.  Now,  while  the  possession  of  under- 
clothes is  not  necessarily  indicative  of  birth  and 
wealth,  I  have  always  assumed,  although  perhaps 
with  a  certain  apathy,  that  the  possession  of  wealth 
and  birth  presupposed  underclothes.  This,  in  Eng- 
land at  least,  does  not  seem  to  be  the  case,  for  my 
young  friend,  whose  name  Is  ancient  and  whose  purse 
is  well  filled,  announced  to  me  in  Mexico  not  long 
ago,  with  the  naivete  that  so  often  astonishes  one  in 
thoroughly  sophisticated  persons  of  his  race:  "I've 
knocked  about  a  good  bit  and  I've  come  to  the  con- 

262 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

elusion  that  there's  usually  something  to  be  said  for 
the  peculiar  habits  of  different  peoples  even  if  you 
don't  know  exactly  what  it  is.  Since  I've  been  in 
this  country  I've  noticed  that  everybody  seems  to 
wear  drawers — even  the  peons.  There  must  be  some 
reason  for  it — connected  with  the  climate  very  likely 
— and  I've  taken  to  wearing  them  myself.  I  don't 
particularly  care  for  the  things,"  he  hastened  apolo- 
getically to  add,  "  and  I  dare  say  they're  all  rot,  but 
I'm  going  to  give  them  a  try.     Why  don't  you!  " 

It  is  natural  and  agreeable  in  Mexico  to  have  one's 
house  in  what  we  call  "  the  retail  district,"  for  one 
soon  learns  to  appreciate  the  Mexican's  combined 
love  of  seclusion  and  publicity.  A  dwelling  sand- 
wiched in  between  the  town's  most  popular  drug 
and  grocery  shops  is  ideally  situated.  The  nature  of 
its  construction — the  Moors  imposed  it  upon  Spain 
and  Spain  passed  it  on — insures  a  fortresslike  priv- 
acy, while  the  site  insures  the  constant  movement  and 
color,  the  manifold,  trivial,  human  and  animal  in- 
terests without  which  the  life  of  a  Mexican  house- 
hold would  be  somewhat  empty.  Those  odd  mo- 
ments consumed  by  us  with  magazines  and  the  book 
of  the  week,  Mexicans  devote  to  looking  out  of  their 
sala  windows,  with  a  rarely  misplaced  confidence  in 
their  street's  potentialities.     It  never  strikes  me  as 

263 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

strange  that  /  can  pass  so  many  hours  in  peering  at 
sights  so  foreign  to  my  race,  if  not  any  longer  to  my 
experience,  but  it  is  one  of  the  pleasantly  surprising 
traits  of  the  inhabitants  that  their  interest  is  just  as 
fresh  and  perhaps  more  insatiable.  To  me  the  love 
affair  across  the  way — carried  on  as  it  is  with  much 
holding  of  hands  in  the  excessive  broadness  of  Mexi- 
can daylight,  by  a  young  woman  of  thirty-eight 
behind  a  barred  window,  and  a  young  man  of  forty- 
two  on  the  narrow  sidewalk  outside — to  me,  this 
public  display  of  an  emotion,  ordinarily  regarded  as 
rather  private,  is  most  exciting ;  but  even  so,  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  after  commenting  on  such 
a  courtship  every  afternoon  and  evening  for  three 
and  a  half  years  it  would  begin  to  pall.  On  Mexi- 
cans it  never  seems  to.  They  do  not  precisely  stare 
at  the  spectacle,  as  a  careful  unawareness  under  the 
circumstances  is  considered  the  proper  line  to  take. 
But  their  blind  spots  are  not  situated  in  the  tails  of 
their  eyes.  However,  it  does  not  necessitate  such 
absorbing  matters  as  affairs  of  the  heart  to  retain 
their  attention.  They  never  weary  at  certain  hours 
of  the  day  of  peering  through  the  bars  or  leaning 
over  the  balconies  in  contemplation  of  just  the 
street's  multifarious  but  always  leisurely  movement. 
It  is  not  often  a  noisy  movement.     The  collective 

264 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

Mexican  voice — the  voice  of  a  group  or  even  a  crowd 
is  musical,  and  the  click  of  donkey's  hoofs  on  cob- 
blestones is  a  daint}',  a  positively  prim  form  of 
commotion. 

But  should  they  wish  to  escape  from  even  these 
sometimes  distinctly  soothing  sounds,  there  is  always 
the  patio  and  the  tranquil  rooms  around  it.  They 
are  of  all  sizes,  of  all  degrees  of  misery  and  splen- 
dor and  of  most  shapes,  these  universal  patios,  but 
in  the  meanest  of  them  there  is  an  expressed  yearn- 
ing for  color  and  adornment  that,  even  when  ill 
cared  for  and  squalid,  has  been  at  least  expressed. 
It  takes  the  form,  most  fortunately,  of  flowers,  with 
often  a  fountain  in  a  circular  basin  of  blue  and 
white  tiles.  A  Mexican  patio,  in  fact,  is  consider- 
ably more  than  a  courtyard.  It  is  a  flower  garden 
surrounded  by  a  house. 

In  Northern  climates  the  most  delightful  hour  of 
the  day  has  always  been  that  in  which  one  comes  in 
from  the  frosty  dusk,  lights  the  lamps,  smashes  a 
smoldering  lump  of  coal  into  a  bright,  sudden 
blaze,  draws  the  curtain  and,  in  an  atmosphere  thick 
with  warmth  and  quiet,  sits  down  to  read  or  write 
or  rest.  In  tropical  countries  one  often  longs  in  vain 
for  this  hour.  Its  impossibility  is,  I  think,  a  chief 
cause  of  homesickness,  and  it  is  long  before  one  ac- 
18  265 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

cepts  with  anything  like  the  same  sense — a  sense 
of  physical  and  mental  well-being  immune  from 
gazes  and  intrusions — the  Southern  equivalent.  The 
Southern  equivalent  is  the  hour  in  which  the  sun 
shines  brightest  and  fiercest,  when  instead  of  seek- 
ing warmth  one  eludes  it,  half  undressed,  in  dim, 
bare  rooms,  under  awnings  and  behind  light,  thin 
screens. 

Even  when  a  street  for  the  time  being  compara- 
tively lacks  moving  figures  there  is  for  the  foreigner 
a  constant  amusement  in  reading  the  signs  over  the 
doors  of  shops  and  more  especially  those  that  decorate 
the  outer  walls  of  pulque  joints  and  cantinas.  Their 
mere  perusal,  indeed,  may  throw  a  truer,  more  valu- 
able light  upon  certain  phases  of  the  native  humors 
and  habits  of  thought  than  do  many  works  less  spon- 
taneous and  more  profound.  "  Jack  O'Grady, 
Sample  Room,"  or,  "  Otto  Baumholzer,  Saloon," 
may  or  may  not  make  an  appeal.  But  even  when  it 
does  it  is  not  an  appeal  to  the  intellect  and  the  imag- 
ination. In  Mexico  the  proprietor  of  a  saloon  likes 
to  advertise  his  wares,  not  so  much  with  his  name 
as  with  a  sentiment,  an  allusion — a  word  or  a  phrase 
that  poetically  connotes.  There  are  of  course  a 
great  many  serviceable  designations  of  no  particular 
relevance  like  the  patriotic  "  Cinco  de  Mayo,"  the 

266 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

inevitable  "  Estrella  de  Oro,"  and  the  frequently 
met  with  and  rather  meaningless  "Cometa  de  1843." 
They  show  respectively  only  a  taste  for  the  national, 
the  brilliant,  the  surprising.  The  gift  of  fancy  is 
not,  after  all,  to  everyone.  Even  when  a  foul  little 
corner  drunker>',  calcimined  sky-blue — with  a  life- 
sized  lady  reposing  in  a  green  bower,  painted  on 
its  finger-marked  exterior — is  entitled  "  El  Nido  de 
Amor,"  or  when  a  pink  hole  in  the  wall  that  can 
be  seen  for  a  block  and  smelled  for  two,  is  named 
"  Las  Flores  de  Abril  " — even  then  one  does  not  ap- 
preciate quite  to  the  full  some  of  the  quaint  possi- 
bilities of  just  the  ordinary  Mexican  mind.  'But  a 
saloon  called  "  EI  Destino,"  another  frankly  adver- 
tising itself  as  "  La  Isla  de  Sacrificios,"  still  another 
with  painted  above  Its  door  "El  Infiernito  "  (the 
little  hell),  a  fourth  that  calls  itself  "  Al  Delirio  " — 
there  is  in  such  names  food,  as  one  strolls  about  any 
Mexican  community,  for  meditation.  Less  grim, 
but  as  suggestive  and  as  apt,  is  "  La  Seductora." 
"  La  Media  Noche  "  and  "  Las  Aves  de  la  Noche  " 
(the  night  birds)  always  strike  a  sympathetic  chord, 
while  "  El  Renacimiento,"  "  EI  Valor,"  and  "  EI 
Mensajero  de  los  Dioses "  (the  messenger  of  the 
gods)  gracefully  hoist  the  whole  matter  into  the 
realm  of  the  ideal.     The  subtlest  of  them,  and  the 

267 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

one  that  never  fails  to  make  me  laugh  as  I  pass  it, 
is  "  La  Idea!  "  I  regret  now  that  the  opportunity  of 
entering  and  making  the  proprietor's  acquaintance 
has  gone.  A  man  who  would  name  his  saloon  "  La 
Idea!  "  ought  to  be  worth  knowing.  The  thing  can 
be  apperceived  in  so  many  ways  and  spoken  in  so 
many  different  tones  of  voice,  starting,  as  at  once 
suggests  itself,  with  the  intonation  generally  im- 
parted to,  "Why,  the  idea!  " 

One  source  of  dissatisfaction  to  travelers  for 
whom  foreign  travel  has  always  meant  Europe,  is 
that  there  are  so  few  "  sights  "  in  Mexican  towns. 
By  "  sights  "  I  mean  the  galleries  of  sculpture  and 
painting,  the  palaces  and  the  castles,  the  frescoes,  the 
architectural  fragments,  the  tombs,  the  relics,  and 
the  interminable  museums  crammed  with  a  dead 
world's  junk,  over  which  the  conscientious  may  ex- 
haust their  necks  and  backs.  European  cities  even 
as  comparatively  small  as  Stockholm  and  Copen- 
hagen possess  museums  where,  guidebook  in  hand, 
people  remain  for  whole  days  examining  ugly, 
labeled  little  implements  fashioned  in  the  stone  age, 
the  bronze  age,  the  iron  age,  and  every  city  has 
among  other  treasures  a  few  miles  of  minute,  Dutch 
masters  before  which  to  trudge,  too  weary  to  ap- 
preciate  their  marvelous  skill  or   to  realize  their 

268 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

beauty.  But  in  Mexican  towns  there  are  none  of 
these  things,  and  the  traveler  whose  days  have  not 
been  mapped  out  for  him  and  who  is  not  in  the  habit 
of  strolling,  of  sitting  in  churches,  of  shamelessly 
idling  in  parks  and  plazas,  is  likely  to  complain  of 
a  lack  of  occupation.  It  is  difficult  for  him  to  ac- 
cept the  fact  that  the  most  notable  sight  in  Mexico 
is  simply  Mexico. 

It  is  difficult,  too,  for  him  to  reconcile  the  general 
outward  conditions  of  the  towns  and  cities  with  his 
preconceived  ideas  of  them,  which  is  always  annoy- 
ing. Instead  of  giving  an  impression  of  dirt  and 
neglect,  of  the  repulsive  indifference  to  appearances, 
and  general  "  shiftlessness  "  we  are  so  accustomed 
to  in  the  small  communities  of  States  like,  for  in- 
stance, Arkansas  and  Indiana,  their  best  quarters  al- 
ways, and  their  more  modest  districts  very  often,  are 
perpetually  swept  and  sprinkled,  dazzling  with  new 
calcimine  and,  for  thoroughfares  so  aged,  incredibly 
neat  and  gay.  About  drainage  and  water  works — 
the  invisible  and  important — there  is  still  much  to 
deplore,  much  to  hope  for,  although  improvement  is 
everywhere  on  the  way.  But  municipal  "  appear- 
ances "  are  rigidly  maintained ;  maintained  in  some 
instances  at  the  cost,  unfortunately,  of  qualities  that 
share  the  secret  of  the  country's  charm.     There  is 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

at  the  present  time,  for  example,  a  rage — a  madness 
rather — for  renovating,  for  "  doing  over  "  the  ex- 
teriors of  churches,  and  in  the  last  four  years  some 
of  the  most  impressive  examples  of  Spanish  colonial 
church  architecture  have  been  scraped,  punctured 
with  pointed  vv^indows,  supplied  with  gargoyles  and 
porticoes  and  then  whitewashed.  To  remember  the 
cathedral  at  Jalapa  as  it  was,  and  to  see  it  now,  a 
jaunty  horror  half  clad  in  cheap,  Gothic  clothes  that 
don't  fit,  brings  a  lump  to  one's  throat. 

The  order  and  security  that  everywhere  appear  to 
reign  both  by  day  and  by  night  are  also  bewildering 
in  a  country  popularly  supposed  to  be  the  modern 
fountain-head  of  lawlessness  and  melodrama.  Be- 
sides the  small  but  businesslike  policemen  with  large, 
visible  revolvers  who  seem  to  be  on  every  corner  and 
who  materialize  in  swarms  at  the  slightest  infringe- 
ment of  the  code,  the  highways  are  patrolled  by  that 
picturesque  body  of  men  known  as  rurales,  of  whom 
there  are  between  four  and  five  thousand.  After 
the  fall  of  Santa  Anna,  the  organized  troop  of  ranch- 
men (known  as  "  cuerados  "  from  the  leather  clothes 
they  wore)  became  bandits  and  gained  for  them- 
selves the  name  of  "  plateados,"  it  being  their  dash- 
ing custom  heavily  to  ornament  their  garments  with 
silver.    In  the  time  of  Comonfort  they  were  turned 

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VIVA   MEXICO! 

from  their  evil  ways  (no  doubt  on  the  theory  of  Its 
taking  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief)  and  transformed  into 
rurales.  Under  President  Diaz  they  have  attained  a 
high  degree  of  efficiency,  and  while  their  practically 
limitless  powers  in  isolated  and  inaccessible  parts  of 
the  country  are  no  doubt  sometimes  abused,  their 
reputation  for  fearlessness,  supplemented  by  a  re- 
volver, a  carbine,  and  a  saber,  has  a  most  chastening 
influence.  One  realizes  something  of  the  number 
of  policemen  at  night,  when  they  deposit  their 
lighted  lanterns  in  the  middle  of  the  streets  and 
there  is  until  dawn  a  ceaseless  concert  of  their  wail- 
ing whistles.  You  may  become  as  drunk  as  you 
wish  to  in  a  cantina  and,  even  with  the  doors  open, 
talk  as  loud  and  as  long  as  you  are  able,  for  cantinas 
were  made  to  get  drunk  and  talk  loud  in.  But  you 
must  walk  quite  steadily  when  you  come  out — unless 
your  wife  or  daughter  is  laughingly  leading  you 
home — or  you  will  be  arrested  before  3'ou  reel  ten 
yards.  Even  chaperoned  by  your  wife  and  unmistak- 
ably homeward  bound,  you  will  be  escorted  kindly, 
almost  gently  (when  you  show  no  resistance),  to 
the  police  station  if  the  city  happens  to  need 
your  services.  The  combination  of  quick  temper  and 
quicker  drink  is  responsible  for  much  violence  in 
Mexico,  but  one  rarely  sees  it.    One  rarely  sees  any 

271 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

form  of  disorder,  and  over  vice  is  draped  a  cloak  of 
complete  invisibility.  In  most  places  women  of  the 
town  are  not  even  permitted  to  appear  on  the  streets 
except  at  certain  hours  and  in  a  capacity  sincerely 
unprofessional.  The  facility  and  dispatch  with 
which  one  is  arrested  is  conducive  to  a  constant  ap- 
pearance of  decorum.  Only  in  a  paternal  despotism 
is  such  law  and  order  possible.  One  evening  I  my- 
self was  arrested  for  an  exceedingly  slight  and  in- 
nocent midemeanor. 

"  But  why  do  you  arrest  me?  Why  don't  you  ar- 
rest everybody  else?  I'm  not  the  only  one,"  I  pro- 
tested to  the  policeman  with  a  lightness  I  was  be- 
ginning not  to  feel. 

"  You  are  a  foreigner  and  a  gentleman  and  you 
ought  to  set  an  example  to  the  ignorant  lower 
classes,"  he  replied  without  a  smile.  It  was  some 
time  before  I  could  induce  him  to  let  me  go. 

The  frequency  of  the  policemen  is  equaled  (or 
exceeded,  one  sometimes  feels)  only  by  the  fre- 
quency of  the  churches.  And,  as  if  there  were  not 
already  thousands  more  than  the  souls  of  any  people 
could  possibly  need,  new  ones  are  always  being  built. 
I  was  told  not  long  ago  of  a  wealthy  man  who,  on 
recently  acquiring  a  vast  area  of  land  which  he 
contemplated  turning  into  a  sugar  hacienda,  began 

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VIVA    iMEXICO! 

the  construction  of  his  "  plant  "  with  a  thirty- 
thousand-dollar  church.  Their  number  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  monopolize  all  the  most  con- 
spicuous sites,  as  well  as  render  conspicuous  most  of 
the  others,  now  and  then  enables  even  a  Roman 
Catholic  to  regard  the  Laws  of  Reform  with  a 
slightly  less  bilious  eye.  The  countryside  is  dotted 
with  them — the  towns  and  cities  crowded  by  them. 
It  seems  at  times  as  if  the  streets  were  but  so  many 
convenient  lanes  through  which  to  approach  them — 
the  shops  and  houses  merely  so  many  modest  depen- 
dencies. Pictorially  considered,  they  imbue  the 
dreariest,  most  impersonal  of  landscapes,  especially 
just  after  sunset,  with  a  mild  and  lovely  atmosphere 
of  human  pathos  that  one  might  journey  far  without 
seeing  again.  But  even  in  Mexico  the  pictorial  sense 
is  subject  to  periods  of  suspended  animation  during 
which  one's  attitude  toward  the  churches,  or  perhaps 
I  should  say  the  Church,  is  curiously  ill-defined.  It 
is  discomposing,  on  the  one  hand,  to  learn  of  a 
powerful  bishop  whose  "  wife  "  and  large  family  of 
sons  and  daughters  are  complacently  taken  for 
granted  by  his  entire  diocese — to  be  warned  by  a  de- 
vout Catholic  never  under  any  circumstances  to  al- 
low one's  American  maid  servants  to  converse  with 
a  priest  or  to  enter  his  house  on  any  pretext  whatever 

273 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

— to  appreciate  the  extreme  poverty  of  the  people 
and  to  realize  that  the  entire  gigantic  corporation 
is  kept  running  chiefly  by  the  hard-earned  mites  with 
which  they  hope  to  save  their  souls.  In  the  church 
of  San  Miguel  (not  a  particularly  large  church)  at 
Orizaba,  I  once  had  the  curiosity  to  count  the  vari- 
ous devices  by  which  the  faithful  are  hypnotized  into 
leaving  their  money  behind  them,  and  as  I  made 
notes  of  the  little  alms  boxes  in  front  of  all  the 
chapels,  at  the  doors,  and  scattered  along  the  nave, 
many  of  them  with  a  placard  explaining  the  use  to 
which  the  funds  were  supposed  to  be  put,  I  could 
not  but  admire  the  unerring  instinct  with  which  the 
emotions  of  the  race  had  been  gauged.  The  system, 
assisted  as  it  is  by  a  fantastically  dressed  lay  figure 
at  every  placarded  box,  has  for  the  population  of 
Orizaba  (an  excessively  religious  town)  much  the 
same  fascination  that  is  exercised  upon  me  by  a 
penny  arcade.  There  were  boxes  for  "  The  Month- 
ly Mass  of  Jesus,"  "  For  the  Marble  Cross,"  "  For 
the  Sick,"  "  For  the  Sick  of  S.  Vincent  and  S. 
Paul,"  "  For  Mary  Conceived  without  Sin,"  "  For 
Our  Father  Jesus  Carrying  the  Cross,"  "  For  Saint 
Michael,"  "For  the  Blessed  Souls,"  "For  the 
Blessed  Virgin,"  "  For  Our  Lady  of  Carmen,"  and 
then,  as  if  the  ground  had  not  been  tolerably  well 

274 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

covered,  there  were  two  boxes,  "  For  the  Work  of 
this  Parish."  But  these  were  literally  less  than 
half  the  total  number.  In  addition  to  the  twelve 
whose  uses  were  revealed,  there  were  eighteen  others 
whose  uses  were  not,  or  thirty  in  all. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  linger  in  Mexican 
churches  day  after  day,  as  I  have  done,  watching 
the  Indians  glide  in,  remove  the  leather  bands  from 
their  foreheads,  let  their  chitas  slip  gently  to  the 
pavement,  and  then,  with  straight  backs  and  crossed 
hands,  kneel  in  reverent  ecstasy  before  their  favor- 
ite images,  without  rejoicing  that  a  profound  hu- 
man want  can  be  so  filled  to  overflowing.  And  I 
cannot  but  doubt  that  it  could  by  any  other  way 
we  know  be  filled  at  all.  Three  men  in  Indian 
white,  who  are  returning  from  market  to  their 
homes  in  some  distant  village,  stop  to  kneel  for 
fully  half  an  hour  without  moving  before  the 
chapel  of  St.  Michael.  St.  Michael  happens  to 
be  an  almost  life-sized  female  doll  with  pink  silk 
socks,  the  stiff  skirts  of  a  ballet-dancer  (actually), 
a  pink  satin  bolero  jacket,  an  imitation  diamond 
necklace,  a  blond  wig  with  long  curls,  and  a  tin 
helmet.  The  two  women  who  accompany  them 
pray  before  the  figure  of  Mary  Conceived  without 
Sin — whose  costume  I  prefer  not  to  invite  the  accu- 

275 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

sation  of  sacrilege  by  recording.  The  men  are 
straight-backed,  motionless,  enthralled.  One  of  the 
women  suddenly  extends  her  arms  with  an  all-em- 
bracing gesture,  and  rigidly  holds  them  there — her 
hands  palm  upward,  as  if  she  expected  to  receive  the 
stigmata.  What  are  they  all  thinking  about?  But 
what  earthly  difference  does  it  make — if  there  be  a 
difference  so  heavenly?  No  doubt  they  are  think- 
ing of  nothing;  thought  is  not  essential  to  bliss. 
Then  they  get  up,  and  after  dropping  money  in 
the  little  slot  machines  of  Michael,  and  Mary  Con- 
ceived without  Sin,  they  proceed  on  their  way, 
leaving  me  glad  that  for  fully  half  an  hour  some 
one  in  the  world  has  been  happy.  For  beyond  the 
possibility  of  a  doubt  they  have  been  happy,  and 
have  deepened  my  conviction  that  the  desire  to  un- 
dermine their  faith  in  Michael  and  in  Mary  Con- 
ceived without  Sin  is  at  best  misguided,  and  at 
worst,  wicked.  "Idolatry  and  superstition!"  one 
hears  groaned  from  end  to  end  of  Mexico.  But 
why  not?  They  appear  to  be  very  comforting,  ex- 
alting things.  It  happens  that  personally  I  could 
derive  no  spiritual  refreshment  from  remaining  on 
my  knees  for  half  an  hour  in  front  of  these  dreadful 
dolls.  But  there  is  a  statue  or  two  in  the  Louvre, 
and  several  pictures  in  Florence,  to  whom — had  I 

276 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

been  brought  up  to  believe  them  capable  of  perform- 
ing miracles — I  should  find  it  most  agreeable  and 
beneficial  to  say  my  prayers. 

So  one's  attitude  toward  the  Church  in  Mexico 
becomes  at  the  last  curiously  ill-defined.  The 
Church  is  corrupt,  grasping,  resentful ;  but  it  un- 
questionably gives  millions  of  people  something 
without  which  they  would  be  far  more  unhappy 
than  they  are — something  that  no  other  church 
could  give  them. 

There  are  city  parks  and  squares  in  other  coun- 
tries, but  in  none  do  they  play  the  same  intimate 
and  important  part  in  the  national  domestic  life  that 
they  do  in  Mexico.  To  one  accustomed  to  asso- 
ciate the  "  breathing  spaces  "  with  red-nosed  tramps 
and  collarless,  unemployed  men  dejectedly  reading 
wilted  newspapers  on  shabby  benches,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  give  an  Idea  of  what  the  plaza  means 
to  the  people  of  Mexico — of  how  it  is  used  by  them. 
It  strikes  me  always  as  a  kind  of  open-air  drawing- 
room,  not  only,  as  are  our  own  public  squares,  free 
to  all,  but,  unlike  them,  frequented  by  all.  It  is 
not  easy  to  imagine  one's  acquaintances  in  the 
United  States  putting  on  their  best  clothes  for  the 
purpose  of  strolling  around  and  around  the  public 
square  of  even  one  of  the  smaller  cities,  to  the  efforts 

277 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  a  brass  band,  however  good ;  but  in  Mexico  one's 
acquaintances  take  an  indescribable  amount  of  in- 
nocent pleasure  in  doing  just  this  on  three  evenings 
a  week  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  as  well.  And 
with  a  simplicity — a  democracy — that  is  a  strange 
contradiction  in  a  people  who  have  inherited  so 
much  punctilio — such  pride  of  position,  they  do  it 
together  with  all  the  servants  and  laborers  in  town. 
In  the  smaller  places  the  men  at  these  concerts 
promenade  in  one  direction,  while  the  women,  and 
the  women  accompanied  by  men,  revolve  in  the 
other;  a  convenient  arrangement  that  permits  the 
men  to  apperceive  the  charms  of  the  women,  and 
the  women  to  apperceive  the  charms  of  the  men 
without  effort  or  boldness  on  the  part  of  either. 
And  everyone  is  socially  so  at  ease!  There  is 
among  the  rich  and  well  dressed  not  the  slightest 
trace  of  that  "  certain  condescension  "  observable,  I 
feel  sure,  when  the  duke  and  the  duchess  graciously 
pair  off  with  the  housekeeper  and  the  butler,  and 
among  the  lower  classes — the  maid  and  men  serv- 
ants, the  stone-masons  and  carpenters,  the  carga- 
dores,  the  clerks,  the  small  shopkeepers — there  is 
neither  the  aggressive  sense  of  an  equality  that  does 
not  exist  nor  a  suggestion  of  servility.  The  sons 
of,  say,  the  governor  of  the  state,  and  theif  com- 

278 


•      VIVA   MEXICO! 

pan  ions,  will  stroll  away  the  evening  betvv-ecn  two 
groups  of  sandaled  Indians  with  blankets  on  their 
shoulders — his  daughters  in  the  midst  of  a  phalanx 
of  laundresses  and  cooks;  the  proximity  being  car- 
ried off  with  an  engaging  naturalness,  an  apparent 
unawareness  of  difference  on  the  part  of  everyone 
that  is  the  perfection  of  good  manners.  When  such 
contacts  happen  with  us  it  is  invariably  an  experi- 
ment, never  a  matter  of  course.  Our  upper  classes 
self-consciously  regard  themselves  as  doing  some- 
thing rather  quaint — experiencing  a  new  sensation, 
while  the  lower  classes  eye  them  with  mixed  emo- 
tions I  have  never  been  able  satisfactorily  to  analyze. 
But  the  serenatas  are  the  least  of  it.  The 
plaza  is  in  constant  use  from  morning  until  late  at 
night.  Ladies  stop  there  on  their  way  home  from 
church,  "  dar  una  vuelta  "  (to  take  a  turn),  as  they 
call  it,  and  to  see  and  be  seen ;  gentlemen  frequently 
interrupt  the  labors  of  the  day  by  going  there  to 
meditate  over  a  cigar;  schoolboys  find  in  it  a  shady, 
secluded  bench  and  use  it  as  a  study;  nurse  maids 
use  it  as  a  nursery;  children  use  its  broad,  outside 
walks  as  a  playground  ;  tired  workmen  use  It  as  a 
place  of  rest.  By  eleven  o'clock  at  night  the  whole 
town  will,  at  various  hours,  have  passed  through  It, 
strolled  In  it,  played,  sat,  rested,  talked,  or  thought 

279 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

in  It.  It  is  the  place  to  go  when  in  doubt  as  to  what 
to  do  wnth  oneself — the  place  to  investigate,  when 
in  doubt  as  to  where  to  find  some  one.  The  plaza 
is  a  kind  of  social  clearing  house — a  resource — a 
solution.  I  know  of  nothing  quite  like  it,  and  noth- 
ing as  fertile  in  the  possibilities  of  innocent  diver- 
sion. Except  during  a  downpour  of  rain,  the  plaza 
never  disappoints. 

I  have  grown  rather  tired  of  reading  in  maga- 
zines that  "  the  City  of  Mexico  resembles  a  bit  of 
Paris  " ;  but  I  have  grown  much  more  tired  of  the 
people  who  have  also  read  it  and  repeat  it  as  if  they 
had  evolved  the  comparison  unaided — particularly 
as  the  City  of  Mexico  doesn't  in  the  least  resemble  a 
bit  of  Paris.  It  resembles  absolutely  nothing  in  the 
world  except  itself.  To  criticise  it  as  having  most 
of  the  objectionable  features  and  few  of  the  attrac- 
tions of  a  great  city  would  be  unfair;  but  first  tell- 
ing myself  that  I  am  unfair,  I  always  think  of  it  in 
those  terms.  In  truth  it  is  a  great  and  wonderful 
city,  and  it  grows  more  wonderful  every  day;  also, 
I  am  inclined  to  believe,  more  disagreeable.  Un- 
fortunately I  did  not  see  it  until  after  I  had  spent 
six  months  in  Mexico — in  Vera  Cruz,  in  Jalapa, 
In  Orizaba,  in  Puebla,  in  the  depths  of  the  coun- 
try— and  when  It  finally  burst  upon  me  in  all  its 

280 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

shallow  brilliancy,  I  felt  that  I  was  no  longer  in 
Mexico,  but  without  the  compensation  of  seeming 
to  be  somewhere  else.  I  certainly  did  not  seem  to 
be  in  Paris,  The  fact  of  going  to  a  place  for  no 
reason  other  than  to  see  what  it  is  like,  always 
stands  between  me  and  a  proper  appreciation  of  it. 
It  does,  I  think,  with  everyone,  although  it  is  not 
generally  realized  and  admitted,  A  certain  amount 
of  preoccuption  while  visiting  a  city  is  essential  to 
receiving  just  impressions  of  it.  The  formation  of 
judgments  should  be  gradual  and  unconscious — 
should  resemble  the  processes  of  digestion.  I  have 
been  in  the  capital  of  the  republic  half  a  dozen 
times,  but  I  have  never,  so  to  speak,  digested  it;  I 
have  merely  looked  without  losing  consciousness  of 
the  fact  that  I  was  looking,  which  is  conducive  to 
seeing  too  much  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other, 
too  little. 

After  the  jungle  and  the  smaller  places,  the  city 
impressed  me,  on  arriving  at  night,  as  wonderfully 
brilliant.  There  were  asphalted  streets,  vistas  of 
illuminated  shop  windows,  enormous  electric  cars, 
the  inviting  glow  of  theater  entrances,  a  frantic 
darting  of  cabs  and  automobiles,  and  swarms  of 
people  in  a  strangely  un-Mexican  hurry.  The 
noises  and  the  lights  were  the  noises  and  the  lights 
19  281 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

of  a  metropolis.  Even  daylight  did  not,  for  the 
first  morning  and  afternoon,  have  any  appreciable 
effect  upon  the  general  sense  of  size  and  effulgence. 
But  somew'here  within  forty-eight  hours  the  place, 
to  a  mere  observer,  began  to  contract — its  glitter 
became  increasingly  difficult  to  discern.  It  was  not 
a  disappointment  exactly,  but  neither  was  it  "  just 
like  a  bit  of  Paris."  It  remained  extremely  inter- 
esting— geographically,  historically,  architecturally 
• — but  it  was  oddly  lacking  in  the  one  quality  every- 
body is  led  to  believe  it  has  in  a  superlative  degree. 
Without  doubt  I  shall  be  thought  trifling  to  men- 
tion it  at  all.  In  fact  I  don't  believe  I  can  men- 
tion it,  as  I  don't  precisely  know  what  it  is,  and  the 
only  way  in  which  I  can  hope  to  make  myself  even 
partly  clear  will  sound  not  only  trifling  but  foolish. 
I  mean — the  City  of  Mexico  lacks  the  indefinable 
quality  that  makes  one  either  desirous  of  putting 
on  one's  best  clothes,  or  regretful  that  one  has  not 
better  clothes  to  put  on.  To  dear  reader  this 
may  mean  something  or  it  may  not.  For  me  it  in- 
stantly recreates  an  atmosphere,  recalls  certain 
streets  at  certain  hours  in  New  York,  in  Paris,  in 
London — in  a  few  of  the  less  down-at-the-heel, 
Congoesque  localities  of  Washington.  One  may  or 
may   not  possess   the   garments   in  question.     One 

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VIVA    MEXICO! 

might  not  take  the  trouble  to  put  them  on  if  one 
did.  But  the  feeling,  I  am  sure,  is  known  to  every- 
one; the  feeling  that  in  some  places  there  is  a 
pleasantly  exacting  standard  in  the  amenities  of  ap- 
pearance which  one  must  either  approximate,  or  re- 
main an  outsider.  In  the  City  of  Mexico  one  is 
nowhere  subject  to  such  aspirations  or  misgivings, 
in  spite  of  the  "  palatial  residences,"  the  superb 
horses,  the  weekly  display  of  beauty  and  fashion. 
For  the  place  has  upon. one — it  has  at  least  upon  me 
— the  effect  of  something  new  and  indeterminate 
and  mongrel,  which  for  a  city  founded  in  1522  is 
a  decidedly  curious  effect  to  exert. 

It  arises  without  doubt  from  the  prosperity  and 
growth  of  the  place — the  manner  in  which  it  is 
tearing  down  and  building  up  and  reaching  out — 
gradually  transforming  whole  streets  of  old  Span- 
ish and  Mexican  houses  into  buildings  that  are 
modern  and  heterogeneous.  In  its  center,  some  five 
or  six  adjacent  streets  appear  to  have  been  almost 
wholly  so  converted,  the  final  proof  of  it  being  that 
in  front  of  the  occasional  elaborately  carved  old 
doorway  or  armorial-bearing  fagade  and  castellated 
top,  one  instinctively  pauses  as  in  the  presence  of 
a  curiosity.  Imbedded  as  they  are  in  unusually  un- 
attractive quarters  of  purely  native  origin,  these  half 

283 


VIVA   MEXICO  I 

a  dozen  business  streets  suggest  a  small  cit}^  in  the 
heart  of  a  large  town.  They  might,  one  feels,  be 
somewhere  in  Europe,  although  the  multitude  of 
American  signs,  of  American  products,  and  Ameri- 
can residents,  by  which  one  is  on  all  sides  con- 
fronted, makes  it  impossible  to  decide  where.  There 
is  a  surprising  transformation,  too,  on  the  left  of 
the  Paseo,  along  the  line  of  the  electric  cars  on  the 
way  to  the  castle  of  Chapultepec.  (A  lady  in  the 
throes  of  displaying  an  interest  in  Mexico  ex- 
claimed to  me  the  other  day:  "  There  have  been  so 
many  earthquakes  in  Mexico  of  late  that  I  sup- 
pose Chapultepec  Is  very  active!  ")  The  bare,  flat 
territory  is  growing  an  enormous  crop  of  detached 
dwellings  that  seek  to  superimpose  Mexican  charac- 
teristics upon  an  American  suburban-villa  founda- 
tion, with  results  not  always  felicitous.  Outwardly, 
at  least,  much  of  the  city  is  being  de-Mexicanlzed, 
and  whereas  the  traveler,  to  whom  it  has  been  a 
gate  of  entrance,  has  eyes  and  adjectives  only  for 
Its  age,  Its  singularity,  its  picturesqueness  (all  of 
which  are  Indisputably  there),  the  traveler  who  sees 
it  last — for  whom  it  is  an  exit — Is  more  Inclined 
merely  to  be  discomposed  by  Its  uncompleted  mo- 
dernity. 

For,  not  unreasonably,  he  expects  to  find  there 

284 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

some  of  the  frills  of  civilization ;  luxurious  hotels, 
"  smart "  restaurants,  an  embarrassing  choice  of 
cafes  and  theaters.  Such  frills  as  there  are,  how- 
ever, succeed  for  the  most  part  in  being  only  pre- 
tentious and  ineffective,  like  those  a  woman  tries  to 
make  at  home  after  taking  notes  in  front  of  a  mil- 
liner's window.  The  leading  hotels  are  all  bad — 
not  in  the  sense  of  being  uncomfortable,  for  they 
are  comfortable  enough,  but  in  the  sense  of  purport- 
ing to  be  something  they  are  not.  The  four  I  have 
stayed  in  reminded  me  of  a  placard  I  once  saw 
while  endeavoring  to  find  something  edible  at  a  rail- 
way "  eating  house  "  in  one  of  our  Western  States. 
"  Low  Aim,  not  Failure  is  a  Crime,"  the  thing  de- 
clared with  an  almost  audible  snigger.  Surrounded 
by  the  second-  and  third-rate  magnificence  of  the 
capital's  best  hotels,  one  longs  for  the  clean,  native 
simplicit\-  of  the  provinces.  The  theaters — that  is  to 
say,  what  one  hears  and  sees  in  them — are  quite  as 
primitive  and  tedious  as  they  are  elsewhere.  A 
translated  French  play  now  and  then  proves  a  temp- 
tation, but  as  it  is  customary  in  Mexican  theaters 
for  the  prompter  to  read  everybody's  part,  whether 
he  needs  assistance  or  not,  in  a  voice  as  loud  and 
often  louder  than  those  of  the  actors,  the  pleasure 
of  illusion  is  out  of  the  question.     In  fact,  it  Is  such 

285 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

a  matter  of  course  for  the  prompter  to  yell  through 
a  whole  play  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  (often  reading 
the  lines  after  the  actors  instead  of  ahead  of  them), 
that  when,  as  happens  once  in  a  long  while,  his 
services  are  dispensed  with,  the  fact  is  proudly  ad- 
vertised !  I  have  several  times  gleaned  from  the  ad- 
vance notices  of  traveling  companies  that  on  such 
and  such  a  night  Senorita  So-and-So  would  take  the 
leading  part  in  the  laughable  comedy  entitled 
"  '  Thingumbob,'  sin  auxilio  de  apuntador!  "  (with- 
out the  aid  of  the  prompter.)  Nothing  in  connec- 
tion with  the  theater  in  Mexico  has  seemed  to  me 
more  entertaining  than  this,  unless,  perhaps,  it  Is 
that  at  the  Teatro  Limon  in  Jalapa,  "  The  manage- 
ment respectfully  requests  gentlemen  not  to  bring 
their  firearms  to  the  performances."  Whether  or 
not  this  plaintive  plea  is  on  the  principle  of  the  old 
"  Don't  shoot  the  organist;  he  Is  doing  his  best,"  I 
have  never  been  able  to  learn. 

There  are  saloons  in  the  City  of  Mexico,  hun- 
dreds of  them,  but  cafes  of  the  kind  that  are  such 
oases  in  the  evenings  of  France,  of  Germany,  of 
Italy,  have  not  (with  the  exception  of  the  delight- 
ful one  at  the  base  of  Chapultepec,  which,  however, 
is  several  miles  out  of  town)  yet  been  invented.  In 
the  matter  of  restaurants  (again  excepting  the  dls- 

286 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

tant  Chapultepcc)  there  is  no  choice  whatever,  If 
one  happens  to  be  in  the  mood  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  eating  and  dining.  People  talk  of  the  food 
at  the  various  hotels,  but  when  speaking  of  Sylvain's 
restaurant  they  elegantly  refer  to  the  cuisine.  Syl- 
vain's is  a  small,  quiet,  dignified,  almost  somber 
place  where  everything,  except  occasionally  the  serv- 
ice, is  as  wickedly  good  as  it  is  anywhere  in  the 
world,  and  where  the  cost  of  painting  the  culinary 
lily  is  somewhat  less  than  it  is  in  establishments  of 
similar  excellence  in  New  York  (I  know  of  none 
in  the  United  States  outside  of  New  York)  and 
Europe. 

But  taking  the  city  as  it  is  (always  a  sane  and 
sensible  line  of  action)  rather  than  finding  fault 
with  it  for  not  being  what  one  assumed  it  was  going 
to  be,  it  has  its  moments — moments  that,  as  far  as 
my  experience  permits  me  to  speak  with  a  semblance 
of  authority,  are  peculiar  to  itself.  On  Sunday 
mornings  three  beautiful  allees  of  the  Alameda  are 
lined  with  little  chairs  and  roofed  with  gayly  deco- 
rated canvas,  under  which  the  world  and  his  wife 
sit,  or  very  slowly  promenade  down  one  side  and 
up  the  other  in  tw^o  densely  crowded,  music-loving 
streams.  It  is  a  variation  of  the  plaza  idea  of  the 
smaller  places,  the  variation  consisting  in  the  aloof- 

287 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

ness  of  the  classes  from  the  masses.  And  by  the 
masses  in  the  capital  is  usually  meant,  although  the 
distinction  is  a  loose  one,  persons  who  still  wear 
native  costume.  A  cheap,  ill-fitting  suit  of  Ameri- 
can cut  is  a  passport  to  a  slightly  higher  position  in 
the  social  scale — which  somewhat  shoddy  concep- 
tion was  responsible  a  year  ago  for  the  abolishment 
of  the  sombreros  worn  by  cabmen.  Until  then, 
these  towers  of  protection  had  imparted  to  cab- 
stands the  character  and  distinction  possessed  by  no 
other  form  of  head  covering.  But  now,  no  livery 
having  been  substituted,  the  drivers  wear  dingy  felt 
hats,  and  carry  battered  umbrellas  when  obliged  to 
sit  in  the  sun. 

The  band  is  very  large  and  very  good — so  large 
and  good,  indeed,  that  later  in  the  day,  at  four  or 
five  o'clock,  as  one  joins  the  ever-increasing  throng 
of  carriages,  cabs,  and  automobiles  on  the  Paseo, 
one  is  amazed  to  discover  several  others  even  larger 
and  better,  playing  in  the  magnificent  circular  glo- 
rietas  along  the  drive  to  Chapultepec.  In  the  park  at 
the  Paseo's  farther  end  is  still  another,  and  whether 
it  actually  does  play  with  more  flexibility,  feeling, 
and  taste  than  the  bands  I  have  heard  in  other  coun- 
tries, or  whether  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  situation 
— the  dusky  cypress  grove,  the  steep,  craggy  rock, 

288 


VIVA    MI":XlCO! 

literally  dripping  with  flowers,  from  which  the  castle 
smiles  down  at  the  crowd  (it  belongs  to  the  smiling, 
not  the  frowning  family  of  castles)  the  gleam  of  the 
lake  through  aged  trees,  the  happy  compromise  be- 
tween wildness  and  cultivation — weaves  the  spell, 
transmutes  brass  into  gold,  I  do  not  know.  The 
Paseo  was  begun  during  the  French  intervention, 
and  although  its  trees  and  its  statues  of  national 
celebrities  are  alike  small  for  its  splendid  breadth 
(the  trees,  however,  will  grow),  too  much  could  not 
be  said  in  praise  of  the  conception  itself,  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  has  been  carried  out.  It  is  one 
of  the  noblest  of  avenues  and,  with  the  Alameda 
at  one  end  and  the  gardens  of  Chapultepec  at  the 
other,  does  much  in  the  City  of  Mexico  to  make 
life  worth  living  there. 

The  crowd  of  vehicles  increases  until  there  is  a 
compact  slow-moving  mass  of  them  creeping  oast 
the  band  stand,  into  the  cypress  grove,  around  the 
other  side  of  the  park  and  back  again.  Many  of 
the  carriages  are  victorias  and  landaus  of  the  latest 
design,  the  horses  drawing  them  are  superb,  the  lady 
occupants  are  always  elaborately  dressed  and  some- 
times notably  handsome.  So  it  is  odd  that  most 
of  this  wealth  and  fashion  and  beauty  seems  to  shy 
at  servants  in   livery.     There  are  equipages  with 

289 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

"  two  men  on  the  box,"  complete  in  every  detail, 
but  in  the  endless  jam  of  vehicles  their  number  is 
small.  That  there  are  not  more  of  them  seems  es- 
pecially remiss  after  one  has  seen  the  few.  For  in 
English  livery  a  young  and  good-looking  Mexican 
servant  exemplifies  more  than  any  other  human  be- 
ing the  thing  called  "  style."  As  darkness  comes 
on  everyone  returns  to  town  to  drive  in  San  Fran- 
cisco Street  until  half  past  eight  or  nine.  This  is 
a  most  extraordinary  sight — the  narrow  thorough- 
fare in  the  heart  of  the  city  so  congested  with  car- 
riages as  to  be  more  or  less  impassable  for  two  hours 
— the  occupants  under  the  electric  lights  more  pallid 
than  their  powder — the  sidewalks  packed  with  spec- 
tators constantly  urged  by  the  police  to  "  move  on." 
It  all  happens  at  the  same  hour  every  Sunday,  and 
no  one  seems  to  tire. 

When  I  said  there  were  but  few  "  sights "  in 
Mexican  cities  I  made,  in  the  case  of  the  capital, 
a  mental  reservation.  Here  there  are  formal,  offi- 
cial, objective  points  sufficient  to  keep  the  intelli- 
gent tourist  busy  for  a  week;  the  cathedral,  the 
Viga  canal,  the  shrine  of  Guadalupe,  the  Monte  de 
Piedad — the  National  Palace,  and  the  Castle  of 
Chapultepec,  if  one  cares  to  measure  the  red  tape 
necessary  to  passing  within  their  historic  and  deeply 

290 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

interesting;  portals.  Even  if  one  doesn't,  it  would, 
in  my  opinion,  be  a  tragedy  to  leave  without  seeing, 
at  sunset,  the  view  of  the  volcanoes  from  the  top 
of  the  rock  on  which  the  castle  is  built;  especially 
as  this  can  be  done  by  following,  without  a  card  of 
admission,  the  steep,  winding  road  past  the  pretty 
grottolike  entrance  to  the  President's  elevator,  un- 
til it  ends  at  the  gateway  of  the  famous  military 
school  on  the  summit.  One  also  goes,  of  course, 
to  the  National  Museum  to  inspect  the  small  but 
immensely  valuable  collection  of  Aztec  remains 
(large  compared  to  any  other  Aztec  remains,  but 
small,  if  one  pauses  to  recall  the  remains  in  gen- 
eral that  have  remained  elsewhere)  and  to  receive 
the  impression  that  the  pre-Spanish  inhabitants  of 
the  country,  interesting  as  they  undoubtedly  were, 
had  by  no  means  attained  that  facility  in  the  vari- 
ous arts  which  Prescott  and  other  historians  claim 
for  them.  After  examining  their  grotesque  and  ter- 
rifying gods,  the  incoherent  calendar  and  sacrificial 
stones,  the  pottery,  the  implements,  and  the  few 
bits  of  crude,  gold  jewelry,  one  strolls  into  the  small 
room  in  which  are  left,  perhaps,  the  most  tangible 
evidences  of  Maximilian's  "  empire,"  reflecting  that 
Prescott's  monumental  effort  is  one  of  the  most 
entrancing  works  of  fiction  one  knows.    To  the  un- 

291 


VIVA    MEXICO! 

archeological,  Maximilian's  state  coach,  almost  as 
overwhelmingly  magnificent  as  the  gilded  sledge  in 
which  Lillian  Russell  used  to  make  her  entrance  in 
"  The  Grand  Duchess,"  his  carriage  for  ordinary 
occasions,  the  saddle  he  was  in  when  captured,  and 
the  colored  fashion  plates  of  his  servants'  liveries, 
are  sure  to  be  the  museum's  most  interesting  posses- 
sions. Not  without  a  pardonable  touch  of  malice, 
in  the  guise  of  a  grave  political  lesson,  is  the  fact 
that  the  severely  simple,  well-worn,  eminently  re- 
publican vehicle  of  Benito  Juarez  is  displayed  in 
the  same  room. 

The  four  or  five  vast  apartments  of  the  Academy 
of  San  Carlos  (the  national  picture  gallery)  sug- 
gests certain  aspects  of  the  Louvre,  but  their  vari- 
ously sized  canvases  suggest  only  the  melancholy 
reflection  that  all  over  the  world  so  many  perfectly 
well-painted  pictures  are  so  perfectly  uninteresting. 
One  cannot  but  except,  however,  a  dozen  or  more 
scattered  little  landscapes — absolutely  faultless  ex- 
amples of  the  kind  of  picture  (a  very  beautiful  kind 
I  have  grown  to  think)  that  the  grandparents  of  all 
good  Bostonians  felt  it  becoming  their  means  and 
station  to  acquire  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  in  Rome. 
The  Mexican  Government,  it  no  doubt  will  be  sur- 
prising to  hear,  encourages  painting  and  music  by 

292 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

substantial  scholarships.  Talented  students  are  sent 
abroad  to  study  at  government  expense.  One  young 
man  I  happened  to  know  was  given  his  opportunity 
on  the  strength  of  an  exquisite  oil  sketch  of  the 
patio  of  his  parents'  house  in  the  white  glare  of 
noon.  He  is  in  Paris  now,  painting  pictures  of 
naked  women  lying  on  their  backs  in  vacant  lots. 
Several  of  them,  naturally,  have  been  hung  in  the 
Salon. 

But  the  guidebook  will  enumerate  the  sights, 
and  the  "  Seeing  Mexico  "  electric  car  will  take  one 
to  them.  Still  there  is  one  I  do  not  believe  the  book 
mentions,  and  I  am  sure  the  car  does  not  include. 
That  is  the  city  itself  between  five  and  six  o'clock 
on  a  fair  morning.  It  several  times  has  been  my 
good  fortune  (in  disguise)  to  be  obliged  to  get  up 
at  this  hour  for  the  purpose  of  saying  good-by  to 
people  who  were  leaving  on  an  early  train,  and  in 
returning  all  the  way  on  foot  from  the  station  to 
the  Zocalo  (as  the  stupendous  square  in  front  of 
the  cathedral  is  called)  I  saw  the  place,  I  am  happy 
to  remember,  in  what  was  literally  as  well  as  figura- 
tively a  new  light.  Beyond  a  few  laborers  strag- 
gling to  their  work,  and  the  men  who  were  making 
the  toilet  of  the  Alameda  with  large,  green  bushes 
attached  to  the  end  of  sticks,  the  cit>^  appeared  to  be 

293 


VIVA   MEXICO! 

blandly  slumbering,  and  just  as  the  face  of  some  one 
we  know  will,  while  asleep,  surprise  us  by  a  rare 
and  unsuspected  expression,  the  great,  unfinished, 
unsympathetic  capital  smiled,  wisely  and  a  trifle 
wearily,  in  its  dreams.  It  is  at  this  hour,  before 
•  the  mongrel  population  has  begun  to  swarm,  that 
one  should  walk  through  the  Alameda,  inhale  the 
first  freshness  of  the  wet  roses  and  lilies,  the  gar- 
denias and  pansies  and  heliotrope  in  the  flower 
market,  and,  undisturbed  among  the  trees  in  front 
of  the  majestic  cathedral,  listen  to  "  the  echoed  sob 
of  history." 


(6) 


THE    END 


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